THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 

GIFT  OF 
FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


C  /'• 


SECT1  ON  A  LI  SM    UNM  ASivED 


Compiled  by 
HENRY   EDWIN    TREMA1N 


NEW  YORK 
BONNELL,  SILVER  &  CO. 

48  WEST  TWENTY-SECOND  STREET 
1907 


JK, 
325 


COPYRIGHT,  1907 
BY  BONNELL,  SILVER  &  Co. 


Sectionalism  Unmasked 


CONTENTS 


Lincoln  and  the  Slavery  Question  in  the  South.— Current  Propa- 
ganda.— Sectionalism  and  Class  Feeling. — Extollation  of  the 
Confederate  Cause. — The  Confederacy  stripped  of  Sentimental- 
ism. — Its  Tyranny. — Individual  Political  Independence  Im- 
possible.— Comparisons  and  Contrasts. — The  Danger  to  the 
Republic  from  the  Present-day  Trend  of  Sectionalism 


II 

Extreme  Fanatical  Race  Prejudice. — The  Slogans  of  the  Extremists. 
— The  Georgia  State  Convention. — The  Gubernatorial  Rivals 
and  their  "Tweedledum"  Politics.— The  Aim  of  All  the  Po- 
litical Leaders  to  make  the  Colored  People  Subservient  Dis- 
franchised Servitors. — Colorphobia  in  Extreme  Forms. — 
Political  Serfdom  or  Political  Manhood. — The  Parting  of  the 
Ways. — The  Better  Element. — Henry  Watterson  Talks. — Dis- 
crimination in  Education. — The  School  Question. — China  and 
the  South  a  Study  in  Contrasts. — Training  Citizens  and  Voters 
and  Teachers 


III 

The  Labor  Question. — Farm  Laborers. — A  Realistic  Picture  of 
Agricultural  Conditions. — Peonage  and  Congressman  Clark,  of 
Florida.— Convict  Labor.— Inhumanities  and  Barbarities  of 
Present-day  Peonage. — Farming  in  Belgium  and  the  Southern 
States. — Contrasts  and  Conclusions  .  23 


vi  CONTENTS 

IV 

PAGF, 

The  Uplifting  Vote  of  the  Negro. — The  Power  of  the  Oligarchy. — 
The  Bogy  of  Negro  Supremacy. — Electoral  Inequalities  Ex- 
posed.— Plutocracy  Dominant. — The  Alliances  of  the  Oligarchy 
and  Plutocracy.— Actual  Conditions  .  .  .  .  .44 


The  "Problems  of  the  South"  and  the  Cry  of  "Hands  Off."— A 
Noxious  Sectionalism. — In  Elections  no  Party  Platform  Issues 
Voted  Upon. — The  Georgia  Disfranchisement. — The  Political 
South  of  Ante-bellum  Days.  —  Speech  of  Hon.  Alexander  H. 
Stephens. — Disregard  of  Law  and  Consequent  Tendencies. — 
How  the  Oligarchy  Maintains  Control. — Inferior  Races. — 
Secretary  Taft's  Speech  at  Greensboro,  N.  C.,  Reviewed  and 
Criticised  ..........  61 

The  President's  Lincoln  Day  Speech  in  1905.— Diplomatic  Avoid- 
ance of  a  Useful  Agitation! — Comments  on  the  Speech. — Its 
Influence  .....  76 


VI 

Northern  Men  with  Southern  Principles. —  An  Executive  Ally  of  the 
Oligarchy. — Elevating  Influence  of  the  Suffrage. — The  Presi- 
dent on  Good  Citizenship. — Discrimination. — The  New  York 
Tribune  Deprecates  Agitation  on  Fundamental  Lines. — The 
Conditions  of  Suffrage  in  the  South. — The  President  on  States' 
Rights  and  Citizenship  .......  79 


VII 

Reduction  of  Representation. — The  Party  Pledge. — Presidential 
Suggestions. — First  Presidential  Message. — Unofficial  Action 
on  the  Plank  of  the  National  Republican  Party. — Congressional 
Action. — Mass  Meeting  at  Philadelphia. — The  Case  Succinctly 
Stated. — Arguments  and  Facts  about  Southern  Electoral 
Affairs 


CONTENTS  vii 

VIII 

PAGE 

1.  Some  Reasons  for  Equalizing  Representation. — Electoral  Condi- 

tions.— What  an  Equitable  Reduction  of  Representation  would 
Effect. — Value  of  Citizenship         ......       98 

2.  How  Disfranchisement  Works  and  Reacts. — What  Representa- 

tive Crumpacker  said  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .115 


IX 

The  Imperialism  of  the  Southern  Oligarchy. — Conditions  Political 
and  Electoral  in  Alabama. — Milholland  on  an  Uplifting  Race. — 
Sir  Erskine  May  on  English  Suffrage  and  the  Bribery  and  Cor- 
ruption under  Oligarchy  Rule. — Parallels  and  Suggestions  .  128 


President  Harrison  Quoted. — Nullification. — Senate  Valedictory  of 
a  Wisconsin  Senator. — The  Florida  Legislature. — Press  Declara- 
tions and  Comments. — Calhoun  and  the  Nullifiers.— Secretary 
Taft  on  the  Colored  Race  and  on  the  War  Amendments. — 
Henry  Watterson  Quoted 137 


XI 

Mr.  Taft  at  Tuskegee. — Some  Comments. — The  Color  Line. — The 
Two  Races  and  Their  Future. — "Jim  Crow"  Legislation. — 
Economic  Progress  of  the  Negro. — The  President  and  the 
Oligarchy. — Hoke  Smith's  Pronunciamento. — The  Press  There- 
on ...  149 


XII 

The  Mississippi  Senatorial  Competitors  ,  16Q 


viii  CONTENTS 

XIII 

PAGE 

Practical    Nullification. — Conflict    between    the    Democratic    Spirit 
and  the  Aristocratic  Spirit. — Caste. — The  "Old  Civilization. "- 
Its  Fallacies. — The  Philosophy  of  the  War. — Present-day  Ex- 
pressions Reviving  Ante-bellum  Sentiments.— Erroneous  Teach- 
ings Condemned  .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .164 


XIV 

Distortions  of  History. — Reconstruction  Period. — The  Revolu- 
tions in  Arkansas  and  Mississippi  and  other  States. — General 
Sheridan's  Report  on  Conditions. — President  Grant's  Special 
Message  to  Congress  on  Affairs  in  Louisiana  .  .  .172 

Black  Codes. — Vagrancy  Laws       .......     181 


XV 

The  Extollation  of  the  Confederacy. — Sherman  on  the  War. — Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's  Speeches  and  Letters  Regarding  it. — Con- 
federate Barbarities  and  their  Purpose. — Striking  War  Pictures 
from  History  .........  187 


XVI 

Congress  and  Confederate  Claims. — Appropriations          .         .         .     199 


XVII 

Brownsville  Affray. — Mass  Meeting  at  Cooper  Union. — An  Analysis 
of  the  President's  Initial  Report  and  its  Accompanying  Evi- 
dence.— Proceedings  of  the  Senate  Committee. — The  Creed  of 
"Cut-the-heart-out-of-the-political-life-of-the-Negro."  -  Con- 
clusion 208 


CONTENTS  ix 

APPENDIX   A 

PAGE 

Press  Expressions  Disapproving  of  the  Laissez-faire  Policy     .  221 

The  Republican  Plank  of  1904. — The  Suffrage  Question  a  Political 
Issue,  Vitally  Concerning  the  Interests  of  all  the  People,  and 
it  "must  be  met  and  settled"  ......  222 

APPENDIX    B 

Planks  Relating  to  Southern  Conditions  Adopted  by  Republican 

and  Democratic  State  Conventions  .....  223 

Public  Sentiment  Favored  the  National  Republican  Platform  of 

1904.— A  "Live"  Issue 223-228 

APPENDIX    C 

Copy  of  Republican  Club's  Observations  that  were  made  Public 
upon  the  Introduction  of  the  First  Reduction  Bill  in  the  Fifty- 
eighth  Congress. — Explanation  of  its  Basis  and  Table  giving 
Figures  Respecting  same. — Memorandum  Respecting  same  .  229 

Brief  Submitted  to  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  in  Support  of  Reduc- 
tion Bill  Introduced  in  it  by  Representative  Bennet,  of  New 
York.— Copy  of  Bill  .  .  233 

APPENDIX    D 

Historical  Comparisons. — The  Policy  of  Pericles  and  of  the  Modern 

South. — A  Study  with  a  Moral 243 

Speech  of  John  E.  Milholland,  Cited  in  the  Text  at  Chapter  IX, 

p.  133 244 

APPENDIX    E 

Origin  and  Necessity  for  the  Fifteenth  Amendment. — Its  Con- 
gressional Discussion  and  History. — Views  of  Distinguished 
Statesmen. — Present-day  Revival  of  Post-bellum  Conditions. 
— President  Grant's  Official  Announcement  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  .  246 


x  CONTENTS 

APPENDIX    P 

PAGE 

An  Episode  Following  a  Lynching         ......     251 

APPENDIX    G 

A  Concise  History  of  Reconstruction,  as  stated  in  a  Speech  of  Hon. 
Joseph  B.  Foraker  before  the  Chautauqua  Association  at 
Bellefontaine,  Ohio,  July  27,  1907 253 

APPENDIX    H 

Historical  and  Legal  Errors,  Suppressions  and  Distortions. — One  of 
Many  Instances. — An  Academic  Address  by  Dr.  J.  M.  Dickinson 
Reviewed  and  Criticised. — Four  Statements  Analyzed  and 
Lessons  Drawn  Therefrom  .......  2o(J 

APPENDIX    I 

A  Contract  Law  and  a  Vagrancy  Law.— Statutes  Cited  in  the  Text 

at  Chapter  XIV,  p.  185 26.5 

APPENDIX    K 

Explanations,  Historical  and  Legal,  Relating  to  the  ' '  Captured  and 
Abandoned  Property  Act"  of  Congress. — Cotemporaneous  Con- 
ditions Stated. — The  Benevolent  Liberality  of  the  Act  Itself. 
— Its  Proposed  Revival  Unjust  ......  267 

APPENDIX    L 

A  Remarkable  Claim  Referred  to  in  Chapter  XVI,  p.  204  .         .     273 

Its  Origin  and  Progress. — Project  to  Distribute  Assets  of  the  Con- 
federacy to  the  Shareholders  of  a  State  Bank. — Alleged  Viola- 
tion of  Laws  of  War  Discussed. — Action  of  General  Butler 
Defended. — Extracts  from  Press  Articles. — Letter  to  New  York 
Tribune,  June  27,  1906. — Editorial  from  Washington  Times, 
Wednesday  Evening,  June  27,  1906  .  .  .  >  .277 


CONTENTS  xi 

APPENDIX    M 

PAGE 

Alleged  Violations  of  the  Terms  of  Confederate  Surrenders. — Details 
of  Appropriations  Referred  to  in  Chapter  XVI,  p.  204. — 
Operations  under  Same. — Curious  Awards. — Reflections  .  .  279 


APPENDIX    N 

The  Valedictory  of  a  Northern  Senator. — The  South  Condemned 
and  Warned. — Denunciation  of  an  Avowed  Sectionalism. — 
Issue  a  National  One. — A  Democratic  View  283 


' '  Whoever  carries  a  mental  kodak  with  him  (as  I  suspect  I  was  in  the 
habit  of  doing  long  before  I  knew  it),  must  be  aware  of  the  uncertain  value 
of  different  exposures.  This  can  only  be  determined  by  the  process  of  develop- 
ment, which  requires  a  dark  room  and  other  apparatus  not  always  at  hand; 
and  so  much  depends  upon  the  process  that  it  might  be  well  if  it  always  be  left 
to  someone  who  makes  a  specialty  of  it,  as  in  the  case  of  the  real  amateur  photog- 
rapher. Then  once  faulty  impressions  might  be  so  treated  as  to  yield  a 
pictorial  result  of  interest,  or  frankly  thrown  away  if  it  showed  hopeless  to 
the  instructed  eye.  Otherwise,  one  must  do  one's  own  developing,  and  trust 
the  result,  whatever  it  is,  to  the  imaginative  kindness  of  the  reader,  who  will 
surely,  if  he  is  the  right  sort  of  reader,  be  able  to  sharpen  the  blurred  details, 
to  soften  the  harsh  lines  and  to  blend  the  shadows  in  a  subordination  giving 
due  relief  to  the  best  meaning  of  the  print.  This  is  what  I  fancy  myself  to  be 
doing  now,  and  if  anyone  shall  say  that  my  little  pictures  are  superficial,  I 
shall  not  be  able  to  gainsay  him.  I  can  only  say  that  most  pictures  represent 
the  surface  of  things;  but  at  the  same  time  I  can  fully  share  the  disappoint- 
ment of  those  who  would  prefer  some  such  result  as  the  employment  of  the 
Roentgen  rays  would  have  given  if  applied  to  certain  aspects  of  the  world." — 
William  Dean  Howells, '  'London  Films." 


Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to  decide, 

In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for  the  good  or  evil  side; 

Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah,  offering  each  the  bloom  or  blight, 

Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the  sheep  upon  the  right, 

And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that  darkness  and  that  light. 

Hast  thou  chosen,  O  my  people,  on  whose  party  thou  shalt  stand, 
Ere  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals  shakes  the  dust  against  our  land? 
Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet  amid  the  market's  din 
List  the  ominous  stern  whisper  from  the  Delphic  cave  within — 
"  They  enslave  their  children's  children  who  make  compromise  with  sin." 

— James  Russell  Lowell. 


.  .  .  that  we  here  highly  resolve  ....  that  the  nation  shall, 
under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom." — Lincoln's  Address  at  Gettysburg. 

"  The  cause  that  triumphed  in  our  Civil  War  was  not  a  sectional  ad- 
vantage. It  was  the  triumph  of  the  American  principle  of  republican 
liberty  over  its  enemies  everywhere.  .  .  ."—George  W .  Curtis. 

Abraham  Lincoln  at  Cooper  Institute,  concluding  his  his- 
toric speech  on  the  evening  of  February  27,  1860,  cogently 
exclaimed,  "What  will  satisfy  the  South?"  Then,  answering 
his  own  question,  he  said,  "This  and  this  only.  Cease  to  call 
slavery  wrong  and  join  with  them  in  calling  it  right.  And 
this  must  be  done  thoroughly — done  in  acts  as  well  as  words. 
Silence  will  not  be  tolerated — we  must  place  ourselves  avowedly 
with  them." 

To-day  the  same  question  is  at  hand,  "What  will  satisfy 
the  South?"  Everybody  knows  the  answer:  This  and  this 
only.  Cease  to  believe  caste  government  wrong  and  join 
the  South  in  calling  it  right;  and  not  in  silence,  but  by  acts 
as  well  as  in  words  must  the  North  range  itself  avowedly  with 
the  South  in  the  annihilation  of  the  political  citizenship  of  ten 
millions  of  its  people. 

Truth  is  radical.  Sometimes  it  is  not  easily  exposed.  Error 
is  subtle  and  diverting.  Mr.  Lincoln  tersely  stated  a  disagree- 
able truth.  History  has  justified  his  sagacious  perception. 
He  knew  the  futility  of  acquiescence  in  error.  He  knew  that 
acquiescence  in  a  wrong  would  engender  a  self-assertion  of  it 
as  a  right. 


2  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

It  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  I860,  that  the  extinction  of 
right-doing  awakens  the  justification  of  wrong-doing. 

The  South  to-day  demands,  and  is  confidently  expecting, 
that  the  nation  shall  acquiesce  in  the  South 's  sectionalized 
political  life,  its  practical  abrogation  of  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  nation,  in  its  avowal  of  the  law's  fundamental  error, 
and  in  its  insistence  upon  an  absolute  annihilation  of  the  law's 
fundamental  principle. 

The  South  to-day,  as  a  whole  and  by  States  and  by  localities 
and  by  individuals,  is  employed,  by  direct  and  indirect  methods, 
propelled  in  part  by  the  sinister  influences  of  plutocracy,  in  a 
ceaseless  propaganda  to  develop  this  issue,  in  season  and  out 
of  season.  Nothing  seems  to  be  left  undone  or  unattempted 
to  offer  it.  If  the  issue  could  be  presented  in  some  concrete 
form  it  would  be  less  dangerous  than  the  subtle  undermining 
influences  now  being  brought  to  bear  by  the  South  and  its 
allies.  The  North  good-naturedly  pretends  not  to  perceive 
this.  Innocent,  confiding,  and  designing  sympathizers,  both 
North  and  South,  obscure  and  veneer  the  issue  with  benevo- 
lence and  commercialism. 

The  real  sectionalism  is  deeply  rooted  and  abiding  and  is 
promoted  by  daily  cultivation.  For  there  is  no  longer  any 
middle  ground.  The  political  conditions — so  the  South  claims 
— in  a  dozen  States  must  cease  to  be  the  subject  of  discussion 
by  the  other  thirty-four  States.  The  challenge  is  a  standing 
one.  The  dozen  Southern  States  must  not  be  disturbed  in 
their  potentiality  at  home,  or  in  their  power  in  the  national 
councils,  but  must  be  left  to  their  own  devices  and  sweet  will 
in-  perpetuating  their  abrogation  of  national  guarantees.  In 
this  the  entire  American  people  are  challenged  to  acquiesce. 

It  has  become — and  while  unsettled  it  will  remain — not  a 
local  but  a  national  question,  that  is  quietly  but  supremely 
asserting  itself,  viz.: — shall  the  colored  people  in  a  dozen  States 
constitute  a  peasantry  of  disfranchised  servitors?  Shall  a 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  3 

class  become  a  caste?  Shall  white  men  lose  their  independ- 
ence? Shall  menials  be  without  political  citizenship,  while 
counting  more  for  their  masters  to-day  than  they  did  when  they 
were  owned  as  slaves?  Shall  there  be  but  one  exclusive  answer 
to  all  inquiries  of  this  character?  When,  where  and  how,  if 
ever,  were  these  questions  settled  so  as  to  exclude  any  national 
attention  to  them? 

It  is  common  sense  to  observe  that  sectionalism,  no  matter 
how  rampant,  can  never  settle  this  issue  without  the  acquies- 
cence and  adherence  of  the  whole  country.  Thus  is  revived 
a  fundamental  question  like  that  asked  by  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Shall  what  is  wrong  be  deemed  right?  Are  the  demands  of 
sectionalism  wrong,  or  are  they  really  right?  The  constituency 
to  ponder  the  answer  is  the  American  People; — the  whole 
people  of  the  United  States,  and  not  only  of  a  part  thereof. 

It  is,  however,  unfortunately  the  fashion  in  high  places  to 
befog  this  issue  and  to  divert  the  people  from  the  results  of  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion,  by  a  species  of  idealism  and  Confederate 
laudation. 


Why  should  the  Confederacy  be  canonized?  It  is  true,  a 
soldier  may  be  a  good  soldier  as  a  soldier  in  any  cause.  He 
may  be  dutiful,  obedient,  valorous  and  efficient.  As  a  man  he 
may  be  esteemed  for  manly  qualities.  But  when  all  this  has 
been  said,  it  is  not  necessary,  nor  indeed  does  it  effect  any  use- 
ful purpose  either  of  benevolence  or  of  historic  truth,  to  extol 
the  monarch  or  the  government  the  soldier  serves.  The  War 
of  the  Rebellion,  so  far  as  the  Confederacy  was  concerned,  was 
a  rich  man's  war  and  a  poor  man's  fight.*  It  was  in  behalf  of 

*  Carl  Schurz  gives  this  apt  description  of  the  poor  whites: 

"They  had  but  a  very  dim  conception,  if  any  conception  at  all,  of  what  all  this  fight- 
ing and  bloodshed  was  about.  They  had  been  induced  or  forced  to  join  the  army  by 
those  to  whom  they  had  been  accustomed  to  look  up  as  their  superiors.  They  had  only 
an  indistinct  feeling  that  the  war  had  not  been  undertaken  and  was  not  carried  on  by 


4  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  elements  in  control,  and  of  the  government  of  the  States 
composing  the  so-called  "Confederate  States  of  America." 
These  elements  constituted  the  most  relentless  tyranny  that 
ever  masqueraded  under  the  name  of  Democracy!  It  was  not 
a  genuine,  but  a  spurious,  Democracy.  Brushing  aside  the 
methods  that  brought  it  into  being,  in  its  supremacy  and  within 
the  range  of  its  military  power  it  was  despotic  beyond  all 
description.  Individual  liberty  was  dependent  upon  official 
caprice.  No  family,  no  estate,  no  factory  was  exempt  from 
military  surveillance.  Personal  property  was  insecure.  Every 
farm  was  made  tributary  to  military  power;  for  every  bale  of 
cotton  was  covered  by  a  Confederate  Government  option  or 
lien  that  gave  pledge  to  the  bonds  which  were  to  mature,  and 
which  by  their  terms  were  made  payable  six  months,  after  a 
Treaty  of  Peace  should  have  been  concluded  with  the  United 
States!  The  pretentious  Democracy  of  the  Confederacy  was 
in  fact  only  the  power  of  local  Bosses  representing  the  slave- 
holding  oligarchy.  The  slaves  formed  more  than  one-third 
(34 \  per  cent.)  of  the  entire  population  of  the  South  in  1860, 
while  the  owners  of  slaves  formed  only  2>\  per  cent,  of  the  total 
population  and  only  5-^  per  cent,  of  the  white  population;  the 
proportion  of  slave  owners  to  the  white  population  being  less 
in  1860  than  it  was  in  1850  (5$  per  cent,  in  1850).* 

the  South  for  their  benefit.  There  was  a  '  winged  word"  current  among  the  poor  people 
of  the  South  which  strikingly  portrayed  the  situation,  as  they  conceived  it  to  be,  in  a 
single  sentence:  'It  is  the  rich  man's  war  and  the  poor  man's  fight.'  This  was  so  true  that 
the  poor  whites  of  the  South  could  hardly  be  expected  to  be  sentimentally  loyal  to 
the  'Southern  cause.'  Hence,  whenever  a  good  opportunity  offered  and  special  hard- 
ships were  being  suffered  by  rebel  soldiers  there  were  many  deserters  to  the  Federal 
lines  from  this  class  of  soliders,  who  were  nevertheless  excellent  -soldiers  while  in  the 
ranks.  .  .  .  Such  poor  whites  lived  and  died  and  knew  nothing  better  than  to  be 
the  abject  followers  of  'the  slave-holding  aristocracy,  oppressors  and  misleaders  of  the 
common  people,  who  had  resolved  to  destroy  the  Republic  if  they  were  not  permitted 
to  rule  it.' " 

*  Twelfth  Census  Bulletin  8,  p.  79. 

The  slave  population  of  those  States  in  1860  was 3,521,110 

The  number  of  owners  of  these  slaves  was 271,623 

The  white  population  in  1860  of  the  eleven  slave  States  was 5,588,220 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  5 

Non-slave-holding  whites  *  were  pressed  into  the  fighting 
ranks,  from  which  men  owning  a  dozen  slaves  f  had  no  difficulty 
in  securing  exemption.  "The  ordinary  white,  without  slaves, 
was  practically  a  mere  political  camp  follower  of  the  slave- 
holding  lord  of  immense  agricultural  possessions."  It  was  a 
fight  for  the  slave-property  of  another  who  was  himself  exempt 
from  fighting.  The  most  arrogant  and  offensive  soldiers,  who 
had  shirked  field  duty  by  influence,  became  local  officials 
exercising  the  power  of  military  rule.  To  every  male  in- 
habitant was  assigned  some  task,  whether  of  contribution  or 
of  service. 

To-day  in  many  parts  of  the  South  the  sons  of  men  who  were 
in  the  Confederate  ranks  are  without  position  and  influence 
in  the  dominant  political  party.  Their  honorable  aspirations 
in  political  life  are  suppressed  in  many  quarters,  but  they  are 
counted  upon  to  uphold  the  same  dominant  Oligarchy  that  has, 
in  its  turn,  now  become  the  willing  servant  of  a  new  Plutocracy 
masquerading  as  Democracy. 

If  honest  elections  and  an  independent  political  party  were 
possible,  as  at  present  they  are  not  in  many  States  of  the  South, 
there  are  thousands  of  men,  white  and  black,  who  could  be  suc- 
cessfully appealed  to,  with  some  prospect  of  overcoming  this 
Oligarchy.  But  that  is  not  permitted.  Who  shall  control  the 
dominant  political  party  furnishes  the  only  "live"  political 
questions,  the  agitation  of  which  thrives  on  misrepresentation, 
greed,  and  corruption;  while  one-sided  Primaries  furnish  the 
chief  incitement  to  concrete  political  action.  It  is  apparently 
only  a  question  of  individual  preference.  There  is  no  conflict 

*  "Yet  it  was  the  poor  whites  of  the  South  who  were  forced  to  the  front  in  the  war 
of  secession  and  did  the  principal  battling ;  thr  Confederate  State  of  Alabama,  with  other 
States  South,  having  passed  an  act  exempting  from  conscription  for  service  in  the  war 
the  large  holder  of  chattel  slaves!" — J .  C.  Manning. 

t  The  Confederate  Congress  exempted  such  of  them  as  owned  from  ten  to  twenty 
slaves  from  conscription  when  the  conscripting  officers  were  raking  the  South  from  the 
"cradle  to  the  grave."  The  conscription  -was  of  course  drastic  (see  Confederate  acts 
of  Congress  of  October  11,  1863,  May  1.  1363,  aud  February  17,  1864). 


6  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

about  principles  or  platforms,  as  they  are  stated  by  a  national 
party.  Contests  of  that  nature  do  not  form  an  issue  before  the 
general  electorate. 

An  appreciation  of  these  conditions  is  concealed  under  a 
false  and  pretentious  cry  of  Negro  domination;  which  is,  indeed, 
as  unlikely  as  the  domination  of  visible  angels !  The  white  men 
of  the  South  are  not  such  political  cowards  as  to  fear  the  colored 
people,  as  is  pretended  by  some  demagogues. 

The  truth  is  that  there  prevails,  especially  at  the  South,  a 
worship  of  visions,  of  ideas,  of  imaginary  ideals  representing 
an  idealized  and  not  a  real  "lost  cause."  There  is  always  the 
halo  of  romance  about  a  "lost  cause,"  and  human  nature 
habitually  indulges  in  much  unwholesome  sentimentality  in 
the  contemplation  of  a  "lost  cause."  Such  uninstructivc  and 
misleading  exhibitions,  for  instance,  as  arranging  a  chorus  of 
children  at  Richmond  in  the  design  and  color  of  the  "Stars  and 
Bars,"  or  in  the  draping  with  the  Confederate  colors  of  a  por- 
trait of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  other  foolish 
illustrations  currently  reported  in  the  press,  tend  to  impress 
young  and  plastic  minds  with  an  improper  veneration.  So  it 
actually  and  often  happens  that  any  uplifting  towards  true 
progress  is  made  only  when  the  romance  and  illusion  are  de- 
stroyed by  the  discovery  of  historical  fact. 

Hence  it  is  valueless  to  conceal  the  truth  that  the  so-called 
"Confederate  States  of  America"  were  typical  of  all  that  pro- 
ceeds from  tyranny,  from  wrong,  from  lust  of  power,  from  a 
spurious  Democracy,  and  from  the  supremacy  of  those  whose 
rule  of  action  was — "  rule  or  ruin! " 

Such  a  political  tyranny  as  was  that  of  the  Slave  Oligarchy, 
the  South  is  to-day  seeking  to  maintain  over  the  descendants 
of  the  freed  slaves,  and  over  the  objectionable  white  element; 
and  the  caste  feeling,  colorphobia  and  race  prejudice  of  the  new 
South  finds  vent  in  denunciation,  misrepresentation  and  mis- 
statements  regarding  the  colored  people  and  the  attempts, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  7 

largely  successful,  to  keep  them  in  subjection  politically  and 
socially;  and  to  maintain  a  privileged  class. 

Out  of  the  mouths  of  the  Southern  leaders  themselves,  and 
of  their  Northern  allies  in  high  places,  is  it  abundantly  proven 
that  there  exists  to-day  a  greater  sectionalism,  if  not  also  a 
more  intense  class  feeling  and  obnoxious  discrimination  than 
really  existed  in  ante  bellum  days;  that  the  tendencies  to  main- 
tain this  sectionalism  are  wide-spread  and  ever-increasing; 
and  that  this  condition  constitutes  a  menace  to  the  peace  and 
happiness  of  the  Republic  and  to  the  nation  at  large.  This 
is,  in  truth,  the  most  momentous  national  question  of  the  day. 
But  the  issues  are  so  beclouded  or  evaded  by  Party  leaders, 
and  by  the  men  whose  policy  is  one  of  laissez-faire,  that  the 
public  at  large  is  really  not  aware  of  the  extent  and  potentiality 
of  this  sectionalism,  and  remains  ignorant  of  the  way  in  which 
it  is  sapping  the  roots  of  the  Constitutional  fabric  which  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion  was  fought  to  broaden  and  to  strengthen 
so  that  it  shall  endure  forever. 


II 

".     .     .     persistent  effort  to  revive  old  system  under  new  forms." 

— Stewart  L.  Woodford. 

"Does  any  seek  this  day  for  any  cause  to  revive  the  old  prejudice  of 
class  and  caste  and  race?  He  is  no  friend  of  the  Union.  Does  any  seek 
this  day,  for  self  or  partisan  success,  to  set  white  against  black,  or  black 
against  white?  He  is  no  friend  of  the  Union". — Stewart  L.  Woodford. 

"Fanaticism  obliterates  the  feelings  of  humanity." — Gibbon. 

The  extreme  and  fanatical  Southern  leaders  openly  proclaim 
their  political  platform  under  the  slogans,  "America  for  the 
Americans"  and  "This  is  a  white  man's  country,  and  white 
men  must  govern  it." 

A  notorious  Southern  Senator  *  recently  said  in  the  Senate: 

"  They  (the  North)  went  to  war  to  destroy  slavery  and  to  restore  the 
Union.  If  they  had  stopped  there,  we  would  have  none  of  this  trouble 
on  our  hands  now.  This  question  would  have  been  allowed  to  evolute 
naturally,  and  we  would  have  been  permitted  to  give  to  those  negroes 
who  may  have  shown  themselves  qualified  and  proper  to  hold  the  ballot 
the  right  to  vote.  But  we  have  made  this  mistake,  of  enfranchising  a 
race,  slaves  last  week,  barbarians  three  generations  ago.  If  it  was  a  mis- 
take, why  not  say  so?  And  why  not  retrace  our  steps?" 

If  the  negro  should  depend  upon  an  acknowledgment  by 
the  South  of  his  worthiness  for  the  ballot,  the  time  would  be 
long  in  coming,  if  indeed  it  ever  came,  for  his  enfranchisement. 

The  same  Senator,*  in  and  out  of  season,  on  every  possible 
occasion,  loses  no  opportunity  of  stirring  up  this  caste  relation, 
and  saying  unfair  things  regarding  the  colored  race, 

*  Tillman, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  <) 

We  find  the  New  York  Herald  reporting  one  of  his  speeches 
thus: 

"Senator  Tillman  has  predicted  'bloody  race  riots/  and  has  asserted 
that  'if  all  vagrant  negroes  were  shot  like  wild  beasts,  the  country  would 
be  better  off,'  adding  that  the  white  men  of  the  South  should  go  ahead 
and  do  what  they  believed  right  in  this  matter  '  regardless  of  all  the  Yankees 
between  Cape  Cod  and  hell!! '" 

The  speaker  went  on  to  say: 

"Here  I  will  say  a  thing  which  is  necessary,  but  which  I  regret  to  say. 
I  believe  it  was  and  is  the  purpose  of  the  politician  in  the  North  to  so 
amalgamate  the  two  races  in  the  South  as  to  make  us  all  part  negro." 
(How  absurd  and  unproven!)  "The  Southern  women  are  standing  guard 
at  the  door  of  the  temple  of  race  purity,  and  the  men  are  aiding  in  the 
amalgamation.  There  can  be  no  dual  standard  of  home  life  in  this  country. 

"We  demand,  and  rightly,  too,  that  our  women  be  pure.  They  are 
with  us,  and,  by  the  living  gods,  a  white  man  who  will  not  stand  with  us 
should  be  made  to  live  forever  with  the  wretches  with  whom  he  delights 
to  associate. 

"I  would  like  to  have  all  the  negroes  move  to  the  North.  In  fact,  I 
have  a  scheme  by  which  I  believe  it  is  possible  to  compel  many  of  them 
to  go  there,  where  they  appear  to  be  loved  so  dearly,  where  the  President 
of  the  United  States  has  sat  down  and  eaten  with  one. 

"This  association  of  white  men  with  negroes  oftentimes  starts  the 
demon  in  the  negro  which  ends  in  an  assault  upon  a  white  woman.  The 
negro  is  led  to  believe  that  if  he  is  as  good  as  a  white  man,  why  not  as 
good  as  a  white  woman,  and  then  he  soon  dangles  from  the  end  of  a  rope 
— if  there  are  men  with  grit  enough  to  do  their  duty. 

"Now  for  the  remedy.  In  Europe,  where  everyone  is  white,  all  persons 
must  show  their  papers.  I  believe  the  passport  system  in  America  would 
abolish  ravishings.  I  know  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments 
would  have  to  be  done  away  with.  When  a  man  leaves  home  he  would 
have  to  present  his  papers.  In  addition,  he  would  have  to  give  good  and 
sufficient  reason  for  his  being  absent  from  his  home  and  where  he  was 
going  and  why.  It  would  result  in  putting  loafers  in  the  chain  gang, 
where  they  would  be  made  to  work.  .  .  ." 

Concerning  such  sentiments  the  New  York  Age*  editorially 
observed: 

"It  is,  however,  timely  to  utter  a  word  of  kindly  warning  as  to  such 
*  Oct.  11.  1906. 


10  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

desperate  agitation  as  Mr.  Tillman's  speech  tends  to  excite.  If  it  is  allowed 
to  go  far  enough  seriously  to  imperil  the  order  of  any  considerable  section 
of  the  country,  it  will  encounter,  it  will  compel  Federal  intervention, 
and  no  one  knows  better  than  Senator  Tillman  that  if  that  is  once  under- 
taken it  will  be  thorough  and  conclusive.  All  reasonable  Northern  men 
regard  such  a  possibility  with  the  utmost  concern,  and  would  avoid  it  in 
every  way  and  to  the  last  moment.  But  there  is  in  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment a  reserve  of  power,  intended  for  the  protection  of  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  which  has  never  yet  been  exercised,  has  never  been  clearly 
defined,  but  exists  and  will  be  used  if  the  plain  need  arises.  The  nation 
has  been  very  patient  and  considerate  in  this  matter.  It  has  seen  such 
men  as  Mr.  Tillman  seated  in  the  United  States  Senate  when  a  free  and 
fair  vote  would  have  kept  them  at  home.  It  has  seen  like  incongruities 
in  the  political  life  of  a  number  of  the  Southern  States,  and  it  has  ignored 
them  because  it  recognized  that  the  situation  was  one  of  great  difficulty, 
and  accepted  the  promise  that  the  processes  resorted  to  would  lead  to 
order  and  justice.  But  if  the  whites  of  any  of  the  Southern  States  in 
which  they  now  have  absolute  control  deliberately  withhold  from  a  whole 
class  of  citizens  'the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,'  if  they  fail  to  curb  the 
lawlessness  and  violence  of  their  rowdies,  and  if  they  stir  up  or  permit  to 
be  stirred  up  a  race  war  in  which  'the  color  of  the  skin  is  a  death  warrant,' 
the  nation  will  cease  to  be  patient.  It  will  act — deliberately,  by  legal 
means,  and  fairly,  but  it  will  undoubtedly  act." 

It  is  the  fashion  in  some  quarters  to  observe  that  this  Senator  * 
is  not  representative  of  the  so-called  better  element  among  the 
Southern  leaders.  This  may  be  true  if  antecedents,  rearing, 
methods,  subtlety  of  conduct  and  style  of  expression  be  con- 
sidered ;  but  if  opinions  that  are  commonly  expressed  and  acted 
upon  at  home,  even  if  suppressed  in  public,  be  considered, 
then  this  gentleman — long  the  accredited  representative  of 
his  State — perhaps  a  little  more  outspoken  or  abusive  than 
other  speakers  along  similar  lines,  nevertheless  voices  the 
sentiments  held  by  his  constituents  and  their  allies. 

What  is  said  these  days  by  the  adherents  of  the  laissez-faire 
policy  about  Tillman  and  his  class  being  extremists  to  whom 
no  serious  attention  need  be  given  was  said  before  the  war 

*  Tillman. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  11 

about  such  leaders  as  Yulee,  Yancey,  Slidell,  Mason,  Toombs, 
and  other  extremists  of  their  day.  But  time  proved  that  the 
views  and  expressions  of  these  men  were  really  representative, 
and  reflected  the  sentiments  of  their  less  noisy  but  skilful  allies, 
of  whom  Jefferson  Davis  was  typical.  Evidence  is  altogether 
wanting  that  the  so-called  extremists  of  to-day  are  not  truly 
representative  of  all  that  they  profess. 

The  unreasonable  and  bitter  attitude  of  Southern  political 
leaders  towards  the  colored  race,  to  which  the  above-quoted 
Senator  gives  such  forcible  expression,  is  shown  by  the  speech 
of  Mr.  Hoke  Smith  on  accepting  the  nomination  for  governor- 
ship by  the  Georgia  Democratic  State  Convention.  He  said: 

".  .  .  The  issues  which  have  been  involved  are  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance to  all  of  us,  and  to  our  children.  They  carry  us  back  to  the  days 
of  1868,  when  white  civilization  was  at  stake !  .  .  ." 

The  significance  of  this  remark  was  emphasized  by  the  Con- 
vention speeches.  In  the  speech  of  Mr.  James  L.  Anderson, 
presenting  Mr.  Hoke  Smith's  name  to  the  Convention,  he  said: 

"  I  insist  that  the  crime  committed  against  us  by  the  passage  of  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  is  responsible  for  the  stench  of  negro  insolence.  .  .  . 
The  Fifteenth  Amendment  will  ultimately  be  repealed,  and  we  shall  realize 
the  glorious  noonday  of  a  united  white  people,  in  absolute  control  of  the 
white  man's  country.  Yes,  Mr.  Chairman,  our  Northern  brothers  will 
undo  and  nullify  the  horrible  crime  they  perpetrated  against  us.  ... 

"  The  white  man  has  snatched  this  beautiful  land  from  the  savage.  .  .  . 
It  is  his  heritage.  In  its  government  and  control  does  he  need  the  aid 
of  a  semi-barbarian,  only  recently  emerged  from  the  jungles  of  Africa?  .  .  . 
Mr.  Smith's  victory  does  indeed  mean  a  united,  and  not  a  divided,  white 
people.  ...  A  glorious  and  greater  democracy.  .  .  . 

"  I  glory  in  the  fact  that  his  noble  fight  for  the  white  people  of  Georgia 
and  for  the  South  has  reunited  the  white  people  of  Georgia,  and  probably 
of  the  South.  .  .  . 

"Let  us  establish  in  Georgia  and  in  the  South,  yes,  in  America,  the 
doctrine  of  everlasting  white  supremacy. 

"  LET  COLOR  BE  THE  LINE  OF  DEMARCATION.  PUT  IT  SQUARELY  HERE. 
The  most  illiterate  white  man  has  enough  inheritance,  noble  conceptions, 


12  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

and  hears  heavenly  music,  which  neither  education  nor  association  can 
make  perceptible  to  the  negro,  in  whose  soul  the  darkness  of  savagery  is 
just  beginning  to  fade  into  twilight.  No,  the  negro  for  ages — -perhaps 
always — must  be  the  servant  of  the  white  man;  he  has  no  other  place  in  a 
white  man's  country.  .  .  .  We  MUST  nullify — yes,  repeal — this 
odious  Fifteenth  Amendment,  else,  my  friends — miserable  thought! — the 
educated  negro  is  justified  in  his  claim  of  social  equality  with  the  white 
man,  and  in  his  attentions  to  the  white  man's  daughter."  * 

That  the  sentiments  expressed  at  the  Georgia  Democratic 
State  Convention  represent  not  only  the  majority  but  the 
minority  of  the  Democratic  party  in  that  State  is  obvious  from 
the  reported  remarks  of  the  minority  leader  f  who  was  defeated 
for  the  gubernatorial  nomination  secured  by  Mr.  Hoke  Smith. 

Mr.  Ho  well  is  reported  to  have  said: 

' '  I  am  in  favor  of  negro  disf ranchisement,  but  I  contend  that  the  negro 
is  now  disfranchised  by  the  only  legal  and  effective  method  by  which  he 
can  be  eliminated  as  a  factor  in  our  State  elections." 

Mr.  Smith  had  advocated  that  Georgia  should  follow  the 
same  course  as  some  other  Southern  States  in  enacting  legisla- 
tion to  shut  out  the  negroes.  Under  such  enactment  the 
registrars  would  arrange  to  take  in  all  illiterate  whites  and 
exclude  even  literate  negroes.  "Not  a  white  man,"  he  said, 
"  would  lose  his  vote!" 

The  Independent  (New  York)  describes  Mr.  Clark  Ho  well's 
attitude  as  "a  bit  more  honest,  but  just  as  venomous,  because, 
as  he  insisted, '  under  the  present  laws  and  established  by  means 
of  the  poll-tax  to  be  paid  months  before  election,  and  in  other 
ways,  the  negroes  have  been  successfully  kept  from  the  polls.' " 
The  Independent  goes  on  to  say  editorially:  "  It  was  a  tweedle- 
dum t  matter  between  the  two,  which  should  do  the  most  to 
silence  the  negro  vote,  by  what  sort  of  vote  or  what  sort  of 
chicanery." 

*  From  Atlanta  Constitution,  Sept.  6,  1906.  f  Clark  Howell. 

J  "  Strange  that  all  this  difference  should  be 
'Twixt  TWEEDLEDUM  and  TWEEDLEDEE." — John  Byron, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  13 

The  platform  adopted  by  that  Georgia  Convention  was  for 
"providing  by  constitutional  amendment,  as  far  as  it  can  be 
done,  against  the  ignorant  and  purchasable  negro  vote." 

The  Chairman  *  of  the  Convention,  in  answering  ex-Congress- 
man Fleming's  Richmond  speech  arguing  that  negroes  might 
be  entitled  to  vote  for  their  own  protection,  declared : 

"  1  SAY  THEY  ARE  ENTITLED  TO  VOTE  FOR  NO  PURPOSE  WHATSOEVER. 
.  .  .  They  do  not  need  to  vote  for  their  own  protection." 

The  temporary  chairman  f  of  the  Convention  (who  proposed 
in  Congress  a  resolution  to  repeal  the  Fifteenth  Amendment), 
frequently  during  the  course  of  his  Convention  speech  repeated 
the  phrase,  "Down  with  the  nigger! "  Each  time  the  Conven- 
tion responded  with  great  applause,  according  to  the  report 
of  the  proceedings  in  the  Atlanta  Constitution. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Estes  about  the  speech  of  ex-Congressman 
Fleming,  above  referred  to,  President  Roosevelt  wrote:  "The 
problem  of  any  one  part  of  our  great  common  country  should 
be  held  to  be  the  problem  of  all  our  country."  Yet  the  South 
to-day  claims  through  its  leaders  that  it,  and  it  alone,  can 
successfully  deal  with  the  problems  confronting  it,  and  cries 
to  the  North,  "Hands  off!" 

And  what  is  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  attempting  to  deal 
with  a  "negro  problem,"  so-called?  Here  are  a  few  instances 
of  outspokenness  on  this  subject. 

A  recently  elected  Congressman  J  from  Georgia  wrote  to  the 
President  asking  for  the  removal  of  the  negro  Collector  of 
Customs  at  Savannah.  To  a  Committee  who  had  asked  for  an 
interview  he  addressed  a  letter  in  which  he  said  that  he  would 
not  give  an  audience  to  negroes!  He  wound  up  his  letter  with 
the  phrase,  "This  is  a  white  man's  country." 

One  effect  of  this  kind  of  extreme  colorphobia  in  the  South 
is  a  concerted  endeavor  to  consign  the  colored  race  to  political 
helotry.  That  no  reaction  or  resentment  should  follow  is  not 

*  Judge  A.  L.  Miller.  f  Congressman  H-.irJwirk .  f  Charles  G.  Edwards. 


14  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

in  accordance  with  what  is  known  of  human  nature.  Already 
the  under-murmurings  are  being  heard.  It  is  truly  "sowing 
the  wind  to  reap  the  whirlwind." 

A  writer  *  who  gets  into  a  frenzied  condition  of  mind  and 
loses  his  balance,  except  for  style,  whenever  he  approaches 
this  race  bogy,  as  well  as  when  he  writes  pretended  history 
that  is  as  much  romance  as  his  novels  themselves,  asked 
recently: 

"Are  you  ready  to  make  of  the  American  people  a  negroid 
nation  ?  "  That  he  affirms  to  be  "  the  aspiration  of  the 
negro." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  "aspiration  of  the  negro"  is  for 
"true  independence  and  the  reign  of  the  law,  founded  upon 
equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  men."  His  aspiration  is  not 
towards  "negroidism,"  as  this  biassed  romancist  declares, 
but  towards  the  enjoyment  of  the  suffrage,  so  that  the  colored 
race  may  take  their  part,  as  citizens  not  only  in  name,  but  in 
verity  and  truth,  in  the  future  course  and  growth  of  this  great 
Republic. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  the  South  to  construe  every  appeal 
of  the  colored  man  for  just  treatment — unless  it  be  on  limited 
lines  denoted  by  the  Southern  political  leaders  themselves  or 
their  benevolent  allies — as  an  attempt  to  stir  up  strife  between 
the  races.  Any  other  organized  movement  aiming  to  ameliorate 
the  condition  of  the  colored  race  is  met  with  a  propaganda  of 
suppression,  if  not  with  open  hostility. 

It  is  a  misfortune,  if  not  indeed  a  wrong,  to  the  race  of  which 
he  is  a  member,  that  any  colored  leader  should  also  be  engaged 
in  that  suppression  and  hostility.  Nevertheless  it  is  quite  true 
that  there  are  exactly  such  persons,  some  indeed  of  exalted 
character  and  of  national  reputation.  The  personal  and  indi- 
vidual motives  for  hostility  should  in  such  instances  be  care- 
fully scanned,  to  arrive  at  the  why  and  the  wherefore. 

*  Thomas  Nelson  Page.  McClure's,  March,  1907. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  15 

The  indubitable  attempt  to  keep  the  colored  people  in  a  con- 
dition of  subserviency  and  without  opportunity  was  recently 
well  expressed  by  a  speaker  *  at  the  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
Centenary  in  these  words: 

"In  many  states  American  citizens  are  denied  the  right  to  vote  on 
account  of  their  color.  There  and  elsewhere  they  are  exposed  to  lawless 
violence,  are  subjected  to  cruel  punishments  without  trial,  are  visited 
with  social  indignities,  are  denied  the  equal  opportunity  which  is  the 
birthright  of  every  man,  are  taunted  with  inferiority,  while  many  insist 
that  they  are  and  of  right  must  be  forced  to  remain  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water,  incapable  of  higher  things." 

This  language  expresses  the  policy  of  the  South.  The 
colored  race  is  abused  as  a  "worthless  class  of  citizens,"  with 
a  "hopeless  difference"  between  it  and  the  dominant  white 
race.  The  South  refuses  to  accept  the  negro  as  a  man  and  a 
citizen,  treating  him  and  wishing  to  keep  him  always  as  a  dis- 
franchised servitor.  The  real  crux  of  what  is  ostentatiously 
styled  the  "race  problem"  is  right  here — whether  there  is  to 
be  political  serfdom  or  political  manhood,  or,  to  use  the  accepted 
language  of  the  sectional  sentimentalists,  "a  servile  popula- 
tion." 

"Here  is  the  crucial  point:  There  will  be  a  movement  either  in  the  direc- 
tion of  reducing  the  negroes  to  a  permanent  condition  of  serfdom — the 
condition  of  the  mere  plantation  hand,  'alongside  of  the  mule,7  practically 
without  any  rights  of  citizenship — or  a  movement  in  the  direction  of 
recognizing  him  as  a  citizen  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term.  One  or  the  other 
will  prevail." 

These  weighty  words  were  uttered  by  the  late  Hon.  Carl 
Schurz.  Which  of  these  two  courses  is  the  American  nation 
going  to  pursue  and  to  perpetuate  as  against  the  sectionalism 
cultivated  by  a  narrow  Oligarchy  swayed  by  inherited  prejudice? 
That  prejudice  is  shown  in  a  great  variety  of  ways,  affecting 
the  colored  people  in  all  the  relations  of  life.  Wrongs  are  being 
done  to  them  of  which  the  nation  at  large  is  but  little  aware. 

*  Moorfield  Storey,  report  in  The  Anti-Slavery  Cause  of  To-day. 


16  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

A  Confederate  veteran  expresses  the  real  sentiments  of  the 
Southern  leaders  when,  speaking  at  Grant's  Tomb  on  Memorial 
Day,  1907,  he  naively  declared: 

"  There  will  never  be  another  rebellion — but  there  will  be  war  and  blood- 
shed. The  negro  question  has  yet  to  be  settled,  and  every  man  who  knows 
the  undercurrent  of  race  hatred  and  prejudice  looks  forward  to  it  with 
dread.  We  do  not  hate  the  negro,  mind  you,  but  he  must  keep  his  place 
and  must  remember  that  this  is  a  white  man's  country.  The  time  will 
come  here  in  the  North  when  you  will  realize  this.  .  .  .  You  will  have 
to  come  to  it  here." 

The  impulse  in  humanity  to  rise  is  one  that  is  implanted  in 
the  breast  of  everyone,  and  in  the  case  of  the  ten  million  (more 
or  less)  colored  free  men  will  undoubtedly  succeed  in  the  long 
run,  when  the  country  appreciates  the  ignorant  and  un-Christian 
prejudice  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  race's  wrongs  to-day,  in 
defiance  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  God  and  man. 
Public  opinion  has  to  be  aroused — and  will  be  aroused — to  a  point 
where  it  will  make  itself  felt.  "The  occasional  word  of  many 
men  creates  public  opinion  which  is  irresistible." 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  the  colored  race  in  the  South  is 
discriminated  against  and  wronged  is  in  the  matter  of  schools. 
Efforts  aiming  to  educate  the  negroes  are  often  frustrated  by 
the  temper  and  disposition  of  those  in  control. 

How  venomously  the  negro  is  written  about  may  be  instanced 
by  a  communication  from  the  South  that  appeared  in  the 
New  York  Times.  It  says: 

"  The  educated  negro  has  only  three  ambitions — to  teach,  to  preach,  or 
to  get  into  the  penitentiary  for  forgery." 

Again,  a  letter  was  written  a  few  months  since  by  a  prominent 
business  man  and  educator  in  New  Orleans  to  the  British  Am- 
bassador at  Washington,  advising  against  the  appointment  of 
negroes  to  Cecil  Rhodes  Scholarships  at  Oxford  University! 
Can  color  prejudice  go  further  than  this — to  bar  from  benefiting 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  17 

by  what  the  late  Mr.  Rhodes  intended  for  all,  irrespective  of 
race  or  color;  and  thus  to  defeat  his  object  of  opening  educa- 
tional advantages  to  those  who  showed  the  necessary  uplift? 

But  there  are  others  than  this  gentleman  from  New  Orleans. 
One  declares  "that  the  association  of  whites,  negroes  and 
Indians  in  schools  was  not  only  impossible  in  the  South,  but 
that  North  Carolina  would  decline  any  gift  or  endowment 
which  suggested  such  a  combination." 

The  minority  leader  *  in  the  House  of  Representatives  is 
recently  reported  as  having  uttered  these  words: 

"  I  do  not  believe  in  raised  schools.  The  future  welfare  of  the  South  is 
wrapped  up  in  the  question  of  separate  schools  and  the  separation  of  the 
two  races  there,  in  order  to  maintain  racial  peace  and  to  prevent  the  out- 
break of  racial  hostility.  .  .  .  Every  great  woe  and  check  to  progress 
that  this  country  has  suffered  is  dated  from  the  landing  of  the  first  slave- 
ship  at  Jamestown.  The  very  Iliad  of  all  our  woes  was  that." 

By  way  of  further  illustration  of  this  prejudice  and  dis- 
crimination, instances  without  number  might  be  cited.  It  is 
only  occasionally  that  the  voice  of  the  more  far-seeing  and 
better  element  in  the  South  is  heard  on  behalf  of  the  colored 
people.  One  of  thesef  recently  said : 

"We  cannot  afford  to  sacrifice  our  ideas  of  justice,  of  law  and  of  religion 
for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  negro  from  elevating  himself.  If  we 
wish  to  preserve  the  wide  gap  between  our  race  and  his  in  the  onward 
progress  of  civilization,  let  us  do  it  by  lifting  ourselves  up,  not  by  holding 
him  down." 

One  way  by  which  the  South  is  trying  to  hold  the  negro  down 
is  by  discriminating  against  negro  schools  in  appropriations. 
The  schools,  too,  for  the  colored  people  are  in  many  cases  not 
worthy  of  the  name  of  schools,  whereas  those  devoted  to  the 
whites  are  well-built  and  properly  ventilated. 

An  illustration  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  a  press  communica- 
tion from  Shreveport,  Richmond,  in  which  it  is  stated  that 

*  John  Sharp  Williams.  t  Hon.  W.  H.  Fleming. 


18  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

although  colored  children  are  about  as  numerous  there  as  white 
children,  according  to  the  1900  Census  returns,  not  quite 
$160,000  was  given  for  their  education  as  against  $2,000,000 
for  white  schools.  The  whites  have  several  large  brick  school- 
houses,  but  the  buildings  for  the  colored  children  are  so  poor 
that  on  one  occasion,  in  order  to  listen  to  an  address,  the 
principal  took  his  entire  school  to  a  church  for  that  purpose. 
There  are  whole  counties  in  Louisiana  with  only  one  negro 
school,  some,  indeed,  with  none  at  all. 

In  some  localities  public  deficiences  have  been  ameliorated 
by  the  creditable  action  of  the  colored  people  themselves. 

Thus  in  "seventeen  Virginia  counties  negro  residents  have 
during  the  past  year  contributed  $3,000  and  collected 
additional  funds  enabling  them  to  improve  many  school- 
houses  and  to  add  six  weeks  to  the  school  term  in  those 
counties."  * 

It  is  unfortunate  that  men  holding  the  liberal  views  of  the 
writer  above  quoted,  who  deprecates  the  holding  down  of  the 
negro,  should  be  excluded — as  such  men  usually  are — from 
public  life;  because  genuine  humanity  and  affectionate  regard 
for  the  colored  people  animate  the  broad-minded,  thinking  men 
among  the  Southern  leaders.  This  is  well  illustrated  in  the 
language  of  the  distinguished  Louisville  editor,  Henry  Watter- 
son,  who  in  a  recent  public  address  said: 

"During  the  century  of  agitation  and  contention  among  the  whites 
about  the  blacks,  starting  with  the  suppression  of  the  African  slave  trade 
to  culminate  with  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  it  was  the  black 
people,  not  the  white  people,  who  behaved  themselves  like  Christian  men 
and  women;  and  if  Gabriel  should  suddenly  blow  his  horn  and  the  world 
should  come  to  an  end  this  blessed  instant,  many  a  white  man  might  be 
found  holding  up  a  black  man  to  plead  his  case  before  the  Recording 
Angel.  You  ought  to  be  very  proud  of  this.  It  should  constitute  your 
point  of  departure  in  that  soul-journey  from  grace  to  grace  toward  per- 
fection which  is  the  goal  of  those  that  accept  for  their  rule  of  life  and  death 
the  religion  of  Christ  and  Him  crucified!  .  .  . 
*  New  York  Evening  Post. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  19 

".  .  .  Reasonable  white  people  and  reasonable  black  people  find 
it  easy  to  get  along  much  as  if  there  existed  no  color  line.  Each  is  inspired 
by  a  sense  of  duty  to  the  other  which,  under  the  benign  influence  of  religion 
and  humanity,  may  yet  blossom  into  the  old  domestic  relations  of  confidence 
and  affection,  the  ownership  clause  succeeded  by  a  manhood  clause,  at 
once  self-respecting  and  reciprocally  respected 

".  .  .  The  interest  of  one  race  is  the  interest  of  the  other  race,  that 
neither  can  prosper  if  either  suffers. 

' '  I  must  tell  you,  after  forty  years  of  experience  and  observation  and 
reflection,  that  I  think  we  began  wrong.  We  put  the  cart  before  the  horse. 
Three  millions  of  poor  black  people,  with  some  centuries  of  abject  slavery 
and  many  ages  of  barbaric  night  behind  them  were  not  equal  to  using  the 
freedom  that  came  to  them  so  suddenly,  and  especially  the  ballot,  with 
prudence  or  intelligence.  How  could  they?  I  don't  blame  them  in  the 
least.  On  the  contrary,  I  sometimes  wonder  at  their  self-restraint.  As, 
during  the  Sectional  war,  they  were  faithful  servants,  remaining  at  home 
and  tilling  the  fields  and  taking  care  of  the  women  and  children,  so  since 
the  war,  according  to  their  rights,  they  have  tried  to  be  good  citizens.  I 
glory  in  every  step  of  progress  they  have  made— and  they  have  made  many 
strides — from  that  day  to  this.  Temperamentally  ever  for  the  under 
dog — a  crank  about  personal  liberty,  if  I  am  a  crank  about  anything — 
my  heart  goes  out  to  the  black  man  wherever  I  see  him  honestly  struggling 
to  raise  his  children  to  a  condition  better  than  his  own.  .  .  . 

".  .  .  I  stand  here  to-night  to  declare  that  the  world  has  never 
witnessed  any  such  progress  from  darkness  to  light  as  that  which  we  see 
in  those  districts  of  the  South  where  the  Negro  has  had  a  decent  oppor- 
tunity for  self-development.  .  .  ." 

Notwithstanding  occasional  liberal  utterances  like  these, 
there  exists  not  only  in  the  South  a  feeling  about  caste  schools 
and  separate  education  for  the  two  races,  but  there  are  also 
numerous  similar  instances  among  men  in  the  North  sup- 
posed to  be  desirous  of  uplifting  the  colored  people.  Ex- 
President  Cleveland,  President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  Bishop 
Lawrence  and  others  are  quoted  as  being  in  favor  of  caste 
schools  and  segregation.  The  Northern  friends  of  the  negro 
have  in  many  instances  adopted  or  assimilated  the  prejudices 
of  the  South,  so  as  to  obscure  a  more  benevolent  and  intellectual 
vision.  Segregation,  sequestration,  deportation,  annihilation 


20  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

— all  have  their  advocates  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  South. 
Much  has  been  written  and  said  along  these  lines;  comparatively 
little  regarding  efforts  to  arouse  the  intellectual  progress  of  the 
colored  race.  That  race  is,  by  these  colorphobiacs,  regarded 
as  unassimilable  and  hopelessly  inferior  to  the  Caucasian.  With- 
out pausing  to  discuss  this  presumption,  the  fact  is  recognized 
that  determined  attempts  are  made  to  hinder  educational  pro- 
gress and  intellectual  development  among  the  colored  people. 

The  former  Minister  from  China  to  this  country  (Sir  Chentung 
Liang-Cheng),  on  taking  leave  of  his  post  at  Washington,  is 
reported  to  have  said  that  his  government  felt  that  "no  reform 
would  be  successfully  accomplished  without  educating  the 
younger  generation  thoroughly."  He  proceeded  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  one  province  of  China  alone  (Chi-li)  3,286 
schools  had  been  established  within  the  last  three  years.  If 
any  State  in  the  South  of  this  country  can  to-day  show  the 
establishment  of  schools,  at  the  rate  of  1,000  a  year,  where  the 
younger  generation  shall  be  instructed  to  avoid,  and  not  to 
cultivate,  the  prejudice  current  among  white  children  against 
the  blacks,  the  evidence  of  such  institutions  might  be  wisely 
forthcoming;  for  the  existence  of  such  an  educational  spirit 
would  evince  a  progress  sadly  needed  in  the  South,  and  estab- 
lish an  influence  that  would  be  most  potential  and  beneficial 
in  localities,  States  and  in  the  nation  at  large. 

The  educational  conditions  in  Alabama,  for  example,  are  well 
stated  in  the  following  editorial  of  a  leading  New  York  daily 
newspaper  * : 

"  In  its  advancement  along  educational  lines  no  less  than  in  its  material 
development,  the  South  is  showing  the  effects  of  the  new  impulse  which 
has  pushed  it  forward  so  rapidly  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  Although 
local  pride,  as  recently  expressed  in  the  protest  of  some  ill-advised  citizens 
against  bringing  Northern  money  into  the  South  for  the  prosecution  of 
educational  work,  may  to  some  extent  prevent  a  hearty  co-operation  by 
the  people  in  some  of  the  less  progressive  sections  of  it  with  the  philan- 
*  New  York  Tribune,  June  2,  1907. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  21 

thropic  efforts  of  various  Northern  organizations  to  raise  the  standards 
of  education  there,  a  healthy  growth  of  public  sentiment  in  all  the  Southern 
States  toward  an  improvement  in  the  general  educational  system  is  ap- 
parent. 

"Alabama  has  been  one  of  the  greatest  sufferers,  in  many  respects,  among 
the  Southern  States.  During  the  reconstruction  period  its  government, 
like  that  of  its  sister  states,  was  largely  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  its  own 
citizens,  and  the  repudiation  of  its  state  debt  shortly  after  the  Civil  War 
was  so  great  a  shock  to  the  credit  of  Alabama  that  at  times  it  has  been 
difficult  to  borrow  even  the  comparatively  small  sums  necessary  to  carry 
on  its  work.  Naturally,  under  these  circumstances,  the  educational 
system  of  the  state  was  not  remodelled  as  it  should  have  been,  and  up  to 
the  present  time  has  not  received  the  attention  that  the  new  times  and 
conditions  demand. 

"  That  an  awakening  is  at  hand  is  evident.  One  of  Alabama's  leading 
papers,  the  Birmingham  Age-Herald,  says  editorially:  'Alabama  is  per- 
haps the  only  state  in  the  Union  that  permits  any  county  to  elect  any  one, 
no  matter  how  unfit,  to  the  office  of  County  Superintendent.  Alabama 
has  had  county  school  superintendents  who  could  not  read  and  write, 
and,  so  far  as  the  law  is  concerned,  she  may  have  more  of  that  sort.'  A 
bill  now  pending  in  the  Legislature  provides  that  the  county  Board  of 
Education  shall  elect  an  annual  teacher-superintendent,  and  that  teachers 
must  hold  a  first-grade  or  a  life  certificate.  According  to  the  same  paper, 
about  sixty-seven  county  rings  will  be  lined  up  against  the  bill,  and  about 
sixty-seven  superintendents  will  oppose  it.  If  the  general  public  is  as 
thoroughly  in  earnest  as  the  Age-Herald  is,  there  can  be  little  doubt  as 
to  the  result,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  public  sentiment  will  be  strong 
enough  to  overcome  the  opposition  of  the  superintendents  and  county 
rings.  If  conditions  are  as  the  Birmingham  paper  affirms,  it  is  entirely 
correct  in  its  statement  that  they  need  the  new  bill  worse  than  a  boy  ever 
'needed  a  whipping.'  It  is  up  to  the  intelligent  people  of  Alabama  to  see 
that  we  get  it,  despite  the  efforts  of  the  county  politicians." 

Not  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  school  income  of  the  South  goes 
to  the  support  of  the  negro  schools.  In  Georgia  the  white  and 
black  school  population  are  nearly  equal,  yet  out  of  every  dollar 
of  State  school  money  eighty  cents  goes  for  a  white  child  and 
twenty  cents  for  a  negro  child — for  each  white  child  $5.92 
a  year,  while  for  the  negro  child  $2.27  a  year.  White  teach- 
ers receive  over  a  million  dollars,  while  the  negro  teachers 


22  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

receive  less  than  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Less  than 
half  the  colored  children  are  furnished  school  facilities,  and 
not  a  cent  is  given  by  the  State  to  the  higher  training  of  negro 
teachers  and  professional  men.  Of  the  more  than  the  million- 
dollar  fund  provided  by  the  United  States  for  agricultural 
training — the  blacks  being  the  chief  agriculturists  of  the  State 
and  especially  in  need  of  such  training — the  division  of  this 
fund  was  in  1906  parceled  out  in  the  proportion  of  thirty-four 
thousand  to  the  whites  for  eight  thousand  to  the  negroes. * 

Public  training  schools  for  negro  teachers  are  needed  in  the 
South.  These  teachers  have  been  and  for  some  time  must 
continue  to  be  turned  out  chiefly  from  schools  supported  by 
Northern  contributions. 

One  member  of  Congress  from  Alabama  opposed  Federal 
aid  to  education  upon  the  ground  that  education  caused  the 
white  farmer  boy  to  get  too  proud  to  work  in  the  sun  and 
turned  him  from  the  plantation!  Deep  down  behind  this 
sophistry  the  real  reason  lay.  It  has  always  been  the  spirit 
of  Bourbonism  to  suppress  the  possibilities  arising  before  the 
poorer  whites  of  the  South  and  to  beat  them  backward  instead 
of  aiding  them  onward. f 

A  benevolent  publicist  has  truly  said,  ' '  that  all  the  negro  schools  and 
colleges  of  the  Southern  States  have  never  been  able  to  prevent  the  enact- 
ment of  one  disfranchisement  statute,  nor  prevented  the  steady  curtail- 
ment of  the  Afro- Americans'  rights  and  privileges.  'Jim  Crow'  legisla- 
tion has  kept  pace  with  the  beneficent  results  of  the  Slater  and  Peabody 
funds."  J 

*  For  this  statement  see  the  Address  issued  by  the  First   Annual  Meeting  of  the 
Georgia  Equal  Rights  Association, 
t  J.  C.  Manning, 
t  John  E.  Milholland  at  Cooper  Union,  Feb.  1,  1906. 


Ill 

"The  man  who,  for  party,  forsakes  righteousness  goes  down." 

— Wendell  Phillips. 

"Years  pass  away,  but  Freedom  does  not  pass; 
Thrones  crumble,  but  man's  birthright  crumbles  not." 

— Maurice  Thompson. 

Not  only  in  educational  matters  is  there  marked  prejudice 
and  discrimination  shown,  but  the  South  deals  with  the  labor 
question  in  an  equally  biassed  and  high-handed  way.  The 
industrial  problem  in  the  South  is,  indeed,  in  its  last  analysis 
the  labor  question  in  ebony.  How  is  its  colored  labor  treated? 
The  actual  conditions  in  some  sections  respecting  farm  labor — 
its  greatest  source  of  wealth — are  truly  deplorable.  The  com- 
pensation and  the  home  life  of  the  farm  laborers  are  most 
discouraging. 

Differences  between  employers  and  the  employed  are  im- 
mediately and  invariably  styled  "Race  Questions,"  and  no 
possible  chance  exists  of  circulating  any  report  of  their  true 
aspect  except  as  narrated  and  permitted  by  the  oligarchy  and 
the  news  channels  under  its  sway.  Every  merchant,  every 
bank,  every  railroad  office,  every  business  agency,  every  news- 
paper office  and  its  dependents,  receives  and  conveys  informa- 
tion and  opinions  promoted,  if  not  inspired,  by  the  dominant 
oligarchy  that  devotes  itself  to  politics,  and  whose  adherents 
subsist  on  politics — although  not  always  styled  by  that  name, 
for  how  can  there  be  real  "politics"  when  there  exists  in  a 
community  concededly  ONLY  ONE  PARTY,  the  party  of  so-called 
"democracy,"  and  where  there  is,  as  President  Roosevelt 


24  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

aptly  expresses  it,  no  "  frank  and  manly  opposition  of  party 
man  to  party  man." 

Labor  from  outside  does  not  come  to  the  South  as  it  should, 
as  it  otherwise  would,  as  it  comes  to  other  sections  of  the 
Union.  The  most  ignorant  Italian  or  Scandinavian  immigrant 
knows,  even  before  he  lands  here,  enough  of  the  real  labor  con- 
ditions in  the  South  to  give  a  wide  berth  to  that  part  of  the 
country.  If  at  all  possible  he  settles  elsewhere. 

In  some  sections  the  actual  labor  conditions  are  appalling. 
An  active  educator  in  Alabama  makes,  in  a  letter  to  the  com- 
piler of  these  pages,  a  terrible  arraignment.  He  describes  the 
conditions  of  the  poor  negroes  on  the  farms  in  that  State,  show- 
ing a  servitude  without  any  of  the  safeguards  of  a  legalized 
slave  condition.  Such  a  picture  as  he  draws  is  one  to  make 
a  nation  skeptical  when  it  is  told  that  "All's  well  in  the  South! " 
It  appears  to  be,  in  truth,  an  extensive  field  for  missionary 
work  of  all  kinds.  He  says: 

"Having  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the  rural  sections  of 
Alabama  and  attended  school  and  taught  for  several  years  in 
what  is  known  as  the  blackest  of  the  Black  Belt,  I  have  had  an 
excellent  opportunity  of  studying  the  condition  of  the  negro 
and  becoming  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  poverty  and  in- 
dustrial conditions  that  exist  upon  the  farm.  I  have  studied 
in  detail  every  phase  of  the  farm  and  home  life  of  the  negro, 
and  know  that  there  is  much  suffering  and  poverty  among  the 
wage-earners  especially.  The  masses  of  the  American  people 
have  no  conception  of  the  real  conditions  in  that  section. 

"Of  the  many  southwestern  counties  that  are  densely  popu- 
lated with  negroes,  I  shall  speak  categorically  of  a  few  only, 
beginning  with  Hale,  in  which  I  spent  four  years  as  principal 
of  the  city  school  of  Greensboro'.  The  total  population  of 
Hale  County  is  about  twenty-nine  thousand,  of  which  about 
twenty-four  thousand  are  colored  people.  About  ninety-nine 
per  cent,  of  these  people  live  upon  the  farm;  about  three  per 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  25 

cent,  own  farms  (or,  rather,  are  buying  farms).  I  think  it 
would  be  safe  to  say  that  at  least  sixty  per  cent,  of  these  people 
work  under  what  is  known  as  the  contract  or  wage  system.  It 
is  mainly  regarding  this  class  of  laborers  that  I  wish  to  speak. 

"The  system  by  which  these  people  work  is  a  mild  form  of 
slavery,  that  is,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  *  a  mild  form  of 
slavery'!  The  little  shanties  in  which  they  are  housed  are  in 
most  cases  small,  seldom  consisting  of  more  than  two  rooms 
(no  matter  how  large  the  family  may  be).  The  people  who 
work  on  contract  are,  as  a  rule,  in  debt  to  the  landlord  from 
the  time  the  contract  is  made  until  they  move  away.  In  some 
very  rare  cases  I  have  found  a  thrifty  and  industrious  fellow 
working  on  contract,  who  wants  something  and  is  saving  his 
earnings;  but  for  the  most  part  the  contract  hand  wants  noth- 
ing that  cannot  be  eaten  or  worn.  In  almost  every  case  he 
taxes  himself  by  buying  as  much  in  one  year  as  he  can  afford 
to  pay  for  in  two!  This  is  because  everything  is  sold  at  a  very 
high  price  and  an  exorbitant  rate  of  interest  charged;  but, 
so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  there  is  no  limit  to  his  credit.  There 
are  many  who  would  buy  a  steamboat  if  they  could  get  it  on 
credit,  no  matter  if  there  was  no  water  within  a  hundred  miles! 

"When  these  people  get  their  provisions  they  prepare 
luxurious  tables.  I  have  visited  homes  where  a  ten-dollar 
table  would  be  set  on  Sunday,  and  in  consequence  the  family 
would  half  starve  throughout  the  week.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  they  are  working  and  cultivating  a  soil  that  will  grow 
or  produce  almost  anything  needed  to  eat,  they  usually  buy 
all  that  goes  into  the  kitchen.  Sometimes  you  will  see  as  many 
as  forty  or  fifty  of  the  little  contract  shanties,  or  quarters  as 
they  are  called,  standing  on  ten  or  fifteen  acres  of  land.  You 
will  not  see  a  barn,  smoke-house,  garden,  pigpen,  chicken  or 
even  a  flower,  to  make  light  or  lessen  the  burden  of  these 
people! 

"  A  few  weeks  ago  I  visited  a  friend  who  is  superintendent  of 


26  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

one  of  these  farms.  He  gave  out  the  week's  provisions  while 
I  was  there,  and  to  my  surprise  each  man  received  a  quarter 
of  a  bushel  of  corn-meal,  four  pounds  of  side  bacon  and  two 
pounds  of  flour.  This  supply  was  for  the  following  week. 
Nothing  was  said  about  the  provisions  for  the  family.  My 
friend,  when  asked  about  it,  said  that  the  landlord  had  nothing 
to  do  with  that,  and  would  not  have  anything  to  do  with  it 
until  May,  at  which  time  the  wife  and  other  members  of  the 
family  would  be  needed  to  work  on  the  farm! 

"The  men  are  paid  very  small  wages.  The  price  paid  to 
laborers  ranges  from  six  dollars  to  fifteen  dollars  per  month. 
These  men  in  order  to  support  their  families  often  resort  to 
stealing.  Most  of  them  are  laboring  under  the  impression 
that  the  only  care  the  landlord  has  for  them  is  their  labor, 
so  they  make  up  their  minds  that  for  their  part  all  they  care 
for  their  employer  is  to  beat  him  out  of  work  all  they  can. 

"Because  of  their  ignorance,  poverty  and  environment, 
they  are  for  the  most  part  grossly  immoral.  I  have  seen  quite 
a  number  of  these  people  (both  men  and  women)  who  have 
absolutely  no  conception  of  moral  duty.  They  live,  in  many 
instances,  in  small  one-room  huts.  A  family  of  from  two  to 
ten  persons  often  cook,  eat,  sleep,  bathe,  get  sick  and  die  in 
the  same  little  dirty,  filthy  hut!  One  cannot  think  of  these  peo- 
ple as  being  otherwise  than  immoral. 

"Not  only  are  they  poor  and  immoral,  but  very  ignorant. 
In  some  settlements  you  find  grown  up  young  men  and  young 
women  who  cannot  read  or  write  a  single  word.  The  public 
schools  in  such  sections  are  poorly  kept  and  by  persons  who 
in  many  cases  are  incompetent  and  care  very  little  for  the 
intellectual  or  moral  growth  of  the  community.  The  school 
terms  are  short  and  occur  in  not  a  few  cases  at  a  time  when  the 
larger  boys  and  girls  are  needed  upon  the  farm.  As  long  as 
there  is  work  upon  the  farm  to  be  done  the  boys  and  girls  are 
not  seen  in  the  schoolroom! 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  27 

"The  majority  of  these  children  never  go  to  Sunday  school. 
In  these  sections  the  schoolhouses  are  not  fit  to  herd  cattle 
in,  but  in  many  cases  the  church  houses  are  well  constructed. 
They  are,  however,  often  presided  over  by  incompetent  preachers 
whose  lives  are  not  an  embodiment  of  the  true  principles  of 
true  and  noble  manhood. 

"The  census  of  1900  showed  that  in  Hale  County  there  were 
ten  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty-nine  negroes  over 
ten  years  of  age  who  can  neither  read  nor  write.  In  Hale 
and  the  five  adjoining  counties,  including  Berry,  Bibb,  Greene, 
Marengo,  and  Tuscaloosa  counties,  there  are  about  fifty-four 
thousand  colored  people  over  ten  years  of  age  who  can  neither 
read  nor  write. 

"  What  is  needed  is  a  general  awakening.  I  find  them  anxious 
to  follow  the  right  kind  of  leadership  when  they  are  shown 
the  right  way. 

"THE  GREAT  NEED  is  GOOD  SCHOOLS.  When  one  of  these 
girls  or  boys  by  chance  gets  into  such  institutions  as  Tuskegee, 
Snow  Hill  or  Atlanta  University,  they  get  a  spirit  of  discontent, 
and  when  they  return  home  they  go  right  to  work  to  change 
conditions. 

"I  have  here  put  down  the  actual  conditions  of  these  people 
on  the  farm.  I  do  not  say  that  every  negro  is  in  such  condition, 
but  the  majority  of  them  are.  Although  this  is  a  dark  and 
sordid  future,  I  still  have  the  brightest  hopes  for  the  race  and 
am  daily  preaching  that, 

"Though  beaten  back  in  many  a  fray, 

New  strength  we  will  borrow; 
Where  the  vanguards  came  to-day 
We  shall  rest  to-morrow." — Arthur  W.  Mitchell. 

A  distinguished  professor  in  Atlanta  University  has  said  that 
"throughout  the  country  districts  of  the  South  we  see  this 
system  of  organization  which  looks  upon  the  laborer  just  as 


28  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

it  looks  upon  the  land.  He  is  to  be  exploited.  The  laws  are 
arranged  for  his  exploitation.  If  he  does  not  work  well,  then 
laws  must  be  made  to  make  him  work  better.  The  whole 
talk  of  the  rural  South  to-day  is  of  controlling  labor  and  com- 
pelling the  idle  to  work.  There  is  almost  no  talk  of  inducing 
labor  to  control  itself  and  putting  such  incentives  before  the 
laborer  that  he  will  want  to  work.  Such  a  conception  of  labor  ; 
has  not  yet  entered  the  thought  of  the  agricultural  South."* 

The  existence  of  peonage  is  a  disgrace  to  the  South. 

Peonage  defies  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  provides  that: 

"Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  punishment  for 
crime  whereof  the  person  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within 
the  United  States  or  any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction." 

The  peonage  system  of  the  South  to-day,  an  eating  cancer 
on  the  bosom  of  the  republic,  exists  in  defiance  of  the  amend- 
ment, and  such  defiance  is  the  breaking  of  the  organic  law  of 
the  land. 

Peonage  is  a  state  of  slavery  described  by  the  Attorney- 
General  (Bonaparte)  in  these  words:  "The  crime  in  question 
amounts  substantially  to  selling  into  or  retaining  in  involuntary 
servitude  persons  who  fail  to  pay  alleged  debts,  which  pre- 
tended debts  are  often  fictitious,  extortionate,  or  fraudulent." 
.  .  .  "The  treatment  of  these  captives  is  often  brutal 
and  revolting  to  every  instinct  of  humanity."  f 

Replying  to  a  magazine  article  on  peonage  conditions  (Cosmo- 
politan, March,  1907,  by  Richard  Barry),  Congressman  Clark 
of  Florida  took  occasion  in  the  House  of  Representatives  to 
print  with  his  speech  a  number  of  extracts  from  Florida  news- 
papers purporting  to  take  issue  with  the  facts  stated  in  that 
magazine  article;  and,  on  the  strength  of  those  newspaper 
articles  and  of  his  personal  acquaintance  with  an  individual 

*  W.  E.  Du  Bois,  "Sociology  and  Industry  in  Southern  Education." 
t  Cong.  Rec.,  p.  4772,  March  4,  1907. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  29 

whom  he  eulogized,  denounced  the  writer  of  the  article  in  the 
Cosmopolitan  as  a  falsifier.  The  servitude  and  character  of 
the  treatment  of  the  persons  held  in  a  barbarous  servility  was 
apparent  to  the  mind  of  any  impartial  reader  of  the  article, 
notwithstanding  the  pretentious  reply  on  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress, for  which,  under  the  Constitution,  a  Representative 
cannot  elsewhere  be  held  responsible.  The  unsatisfactory 
character  of  this  Congressional  assault  upon  an  independent 
investigator  will  appear  from  reading  the  speech  and  the  article 
so  hotly  denounced.* 

The  veneer  of  legality  which  as  a  poisonous  pseudo-salve 
to  the  public  conscience  is  spread  over  peonage  as  it  is  prac- 
tised in  the  South  is  one  of  its  most  demoralizing  features. 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  this  "veneer"  might  readily 
be  brushed  aside  by  legal  proceedings  in  behalf  of  any  of  the 
suffering  victims,  yet  their  ignorant,  friendless  and  destitute 
condition  renders  such  a  course  impracticable.  Indeed  if 
any  philanthropic,  industrial  or  benevolent  association  should 
undertake  a  crusade  of  that  character  it  would  be  crushed, 
if  not  by  the  magnitude  of  its  task,  certainly  by  the  public 
and  financial  interests  which  are  to-day  sustaining  this  system 
of  peonage.  The  isolated  instances  where  prosecutions  have 
successfully  terminated  have  resulted  in  little,  if  any,  moral 
effect,  in  view  of  the  circumstances  that  in  most  cases  the 
affected  individual,  by  bail  or  in  some  way,  remains  at  large. 

As  the  result  of  a  most  painstaking  investigation  of  the  con- 
vict lease  camps  of  Georgia  made  recently  by  a  Southern  man 
(Colonel  Byrd),  the  specific  charges  against  their  practice 
were  summed  up: 

"(1)  Robbing  convicts  of  their  time  allowances  for  good  behavior. 
According  to  Colonel  Byrd,  there  were  not  five  camps  in 'the  State  that 
had  complied  with  the  law  requiring  them  to  keep  a  book  in  which  the 
good  or  bad  conduct  of  each  convict  shall  be  entered  daily.  In  the  event  of 

*  Cong.  Rec.,  p.  4836. 


30  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

good  conduct  the  law  provides  that  a  prisoner's  term  of  confinement  shall 
be  shortened  four  days  during  each  month  of  service.  In  fifteen  out  of 
twenty-four  private  camps  the  contractors  did  not  give  the  convicts  a 
single  day  off  for  good  service,  nor  did  they  even  make  pretence  of  doing  so. 
(2)  Forcing  convicts  to  work  from  fourteen  to  twenty  hours  a  day.  (3) 
Providing  them  no  clothes,  no  shoes,  no  beds,  no  heat  in  winter,  and  no 
ventilation  whatever  in  single  rooms  in  summer  in  which  sixty  convicts 
slept  in  chairs.  (4)  Giving  them  rotten  food.  (5)  Allowing  them  to  die, 
when  sick,  for  lack  of  medical  attention.  (6)  Outraging  the  women.  (7) 
Beating  to  death  old  men  too  feeble  to  work.  (8)  Killing  young  men 
for  the  mere  sake  of  killing.  (9)  Suborning  jurors  and  county  officers, 
whose  sworn  duty  it  is  to  avenge  the  wrongdoing  of  guards." 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  many  respects  the  con- 
vict lease  system  as  it  is  operated  in  the  Southern  States  is 
less  human  than  was  the  bondage  of  slavery  times.  For  under 
the  latter  it  was  to  the  master's  interest  to  feed,  clothe  and 
shelter  the  slaves  properly.  The  death  of  a  slave  meant  actual 
pecuniary  loss,  whereas  the  death  of  a  convict  to-day  involves 
no  money  loss  either  to  the  lessee  or  to  the  States  or  county 
that  permits  the  lease. 

"The  plan  of  hiring  out  short  term  convicts  to  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  company  of  individuals  who  needed  laborers  was 
adopted  by  the  Southern  States  shortly  after  the  war,  not 
from  choice,  it  is  claimed,  but  because  there  was  neither  a 
sufficient  number  of  jails  nor  money  enough  to  build  them. 
Those  who  need  laborers  for  their  farms,  saw-mills,  brick  yards, 
turpentine  distilleries,  coal  or  phosphate  mines,  or  who  have 
large  contracts  of  various  kinds,  lease  the  misdemeanants  from 
the  county  or  State,  which  sells  them  to  the  highest  bidder 
with  merciless  disregard  of  the  fact  that  they  are  human 
beings,  and  practically  gives  the  lessee  the  power  of  life  and 
death  over  the  unfortunate  man  or  woman  thus  raffled  off. 
The  more  work  the  lessee  gets  out  of  the  convict,  the  more 
money  goes  into  his  gaping  purse.  Doctors  cannot  be  em- 
ployed without  the  expenditure  of  money,  while  fresh  victims 
may  be  secured  by  the  outlay  of  little  cash  when  convicts 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  31 

succumb  to  disease  and  neglect.  From  a  purely  business 
standpoint,  therefore,  it  is  more  profitable  to  get  as  much 
work  out  of  a  convict  as  can  be  wrung  from  him  at  the  smallest 
possible  expense,  and  then  lay  in  a  fresh  supply  when  necessary, 
than  it  is  to  clothe  and  shelter  and  feed  him  properly  and 
spend  money  trying  to  preserve  his  health." 

In  some  parts  of  the  country  there  is  a  well-known  practice 
of  discovering  and  caphiring  able-bodied  negroes  whose  labor 
is  needed  on  the  farms.  In  many  cases  these  captured  men 
are  worked  only  during  the  essential  season.  They  are  then 
released  with  empty  pockets  to  go  where  they  can  and  risk 
capture  when  they  are  again  needed. 

"From  renting  or  buying  colored  men,  women  and  children, 
who  had  already  fallen  under  the  ban  of  the  law,  to  actually 
trapping  and  stealing  them,  was  a  very  short  step  indeed, 
when  labor  was  scarce  and  the  need  of  additional  hands  pressed 
sore.  Very  recently,  incredible  as  it  may  appear  to  many, 
colored  men  have  been  captured  by  white  men,  torn  from  their 
homes  and  forced  to  work  on  plantations  or  in  camps  of  various 
kinds,  just  as  truly  as  their  fathers  before  them  were  snatched 
violently  by  slave  catchers  from  their  native  African  shores. 
Only  in  February,  1906,  two  cotton  planters  of  Houston,  Texas, 
were  arrested  for  a  kind  of  peonage  which  is  by  no  means  un- 
common in  the  South  to-day.  The  planters  needed  extra 
help,  so  they  captured  two  strong  able-bodied  negroes,  whom 
they  charged  with  being  indebted  to  them,  and  with  having 
violated  their  contracts.  Without  resort  to  law  they  manacled 
the  negroes  and  removed  them  to  their  plantation,  where 
they  forced  them  to  work  from  twelve  to  sixteen  hours  a  day 
without  paying  them  a  cent." 

The  atrocities  are  inconceivable  that  are  daily  being  perpe- 
trated in  almost  every  State  of  the  South,  with  the  knowledge 
if  not  the  actual  connivance  of  those  charged  with  the  ad- 
ministering of  the  law.  A  very  hazy  idea  prevails  all  over 


32  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  country  as  to  what  the  convict  lease  system  either  of  State 
or  county  really  signifies.  There  are  chain  gangs  too,  whereby 
men,  women  and  even  children  are  forced  into  involuntary 
servitude  under  a  pretended  sentence,  when  they  are  not  even 
charged  with  crime,  but  with  some  petty  offence  such  as  in- 
truding upon  a  park  lawn,  expectorating  upon  the  sidewalk, 
going  to  sleep  in  a  depot,  or  loitering  on  the  streets,  although 
it  has  been  judicially  declared  by  a  United  States  judge  that 
the  magistrates  sentencing  these  helpless  people  to  the  chain 
gangs  are  themselves  liable  to  punishment  for  it,  despite 
municipal  ordinance  or  State  law  sanctioning  it.  The  power 
of  Congress  is  ample  to  punish  such  magistrates.  When 
colored  men  are  convicted  in  the  magistrates'  courts  of  trivial 
offences — which,  as  has  been  made  apparent  in  this  volume, 
may  under  the  State  laws  include  alleged  violation  of  contract 
— they  are  often  given  heavy  sentences,  with  alternative 
fines. 

"Plantation  owners  and  others  in  search  of  labor,  who  have 
already  given  their  orders  to  the  officers  of  the  law,  are  promptly 
notified  that  some  available  laborers  are  theirs  to  command, 
and  immediately  appear  to  pay  the  fine  and  release  the  convict 
from  jail,  only  to  make  him  a  slave.  If  the  negro  dares  to 
leave  the  premises  of  his  employer,  the  same  magistrate  who 
convicted  him  originally  is  ready  to  pounce  down  upon  him 
and  send  him  back  to  jail.  Invariably  poor  and  ignorant,  he 
is  unable  to  employ  counsel  or  to  assert  his  rights  (it  is  treason 
to  presume  he.has  any) ,  and  he  finds  all  the  machinery  of  the 
law,  so  far  as  he  can  understand,  against  him.  There  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  there  are  scores,  hundreds  perhaps,  of 
colored  men  in  the  South  to-day  who  are  vainly  trying  to  repay 
fines  and  sentences  imposed  upon  them  five,  six,  or  even  ten 
years  ago.  The  horror  of  ball  and  chain  is  ever  before  them, 
and  their  future  is  bright  with  no  hope." 

Well  has  it  been  said  by  a  penologist  that  "over  certain 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  33 

places  where  convicts  of  Alabama  are  employed  should  be 
written  the  words,  '  All  hope  abandon  ye  who  enter  here! ' ' 

The  barbarities  that  are  practised  in  these  convict  lease  camps 
and  chain  gangs  would  be  incredible  except  for  the  proofs  of 
their  existence  that  have  been  testified  to  in  judicial  and  other 
proceedings.  Witnesses  have  "told  pitiable  tales  of  their 
suffering  and  maltreatment,  and  related  stories  of  seeing  men 
killed,  dragged  to  the  river  in  blankets,  weighted  and  then 
sunk  into  the  water,  which  are  too  horrible  to  believe.  As  a 
result  of  this  trial  one  of  the  largest  railroad  contractors  of 
Knoxville,  Tenn.,  was  indicted  by  the  grand  jury  on  the  charge 
of  peonage,  the  indictment  containing  twenty-five  counts." 

A  colored  man  who  had  been  a  soldier  was  held  in  bondage 
in  Missouri,  but  escaped  by  cutting  a  hole  in  the  floor  of  the 
shack  in  which  he  was  confined;  and  the  man  who  held  him 
was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  three  and  a  half  years  in  the 
penitentiary  and  a  fine  of  five  thousand  dollars.  In  that  par- 
ticular case  the  son  of  the  offender  was  also  convicted. 

In  another  case  a  complaint  was  made  setting  forth  inhuman 
treatment  in  Arkansas,  imprisonment  in  various  places,  but 
the  victims  were  bound  like  beasts  and  paraded  through  the 
public  streets  and  compelled  to  do  severe  labor  on  plantations 
without  receiving  a  cent. 

In  another  case  the  chairman  of  the  board  of  commissioners 
was  arrested  in  July,  1907,  at  Bradford,  Florida,  charged  with 
holding  in  peonage  a  young  white  girl  who  declared  that  she 
was  brutally  treated.  She  started  to  walk  to  Jacksonville, 
but  after  going  six  miles  was  overtaken,  forced  to  go  back, 
wading  knee-deep  in  some  places,  and  on  her  return  was  beaten 
with  a  hickory  stick. 

In  another  case  in  Arkansas  a  farmer  had  native  girls 
come  from  Missouri  and  then  promptly  reduced  them  to 
slavery. 

In  another  reported  instance  a  number  of  white  girls  making 
3 


34  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

claims  to  valuable  timber  lands  in  the  wilds  of  Florida  were 
compelled  to  wear  men's  clothing  and  work  side  by  side  with 
colored  men  who  were  held  in  slavery  as  well  as  the  girls. 
"Stories  of  the  treatment  accorded  these  wrhite  slave  girls 
of  Florida,  which  reached  the  ears  of  the  Washington  officials, 
equal  in  cruelty  some  of  the  tales  related  in  'Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin'  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  In  the  black  depths 
of  pine  woods,  living  in  huts  never  seen  by  civilized  white  men 
other  than  the  bosses  of  the  turpentine  camps,  girls  are  said 
to  have  grown  old  in  servitude.  These  girls  are  said  to  be  the 
daughters  of  crackers  who,  like  fathers  in  prehistoric  times, 
little  value  the  birth  of  a  girl  and  sell  the  best  years  of  their 
daughters'  lives  to  the  turpentine  or  sulphur  miners  and  to 
the  lumber  men  for  a  mere  song.  To  be  discharged  from  one 
of  these  camps  means  death  to  an  employe.  Since  they  receive 
nothing  for  their  services  their  dismissal  is  no  revenge  for  an 
angered  foreman  or  boss.  The  slaves  are  too  numerous  to  be 
beaten,  and  it  is  said  to  be  a  part  of  the  system  never  to  whip 
an  employe,  but  invariably  to  shoot  the  doomed  man  or  woman 
upon  the  slightest  provocation,  so  that  the  others  might  be 
kept  in  constant  subjection." 

In  another  instance  men  from  Indiana  seeking  work  had  been 
lured  to  Mississippi  where  they  were  arrested  and  fined  by  the 
magistrate  $45  and  costs.  They  were  then  taken  twenty- 
three  miles  to  the  county  seat  where  they  were  for  three  days 
given  only  one  meal  a  day  and  then  taken  to  Essex,  Mississippi, 
"turned  over  to  the  owner  of  a  plantation,  placed  in  a  stockade 
at  night  and  forced  to  work  under  an  armed  guard.  They 
were  ordered  to  work  out  their  fine  at  fifteen  cents  a  day,  such 
a  contract  being  made  by  the  court  officers  themselves." 

According  to  this  Indiana  man  there  were  workers  on  that 
plantation  who  for  ten  years  had  been  trying  in  vain  to  work 
out  their  fines!  "Before  one  fine  could  be  worked  out  a  new 
charge  would  be  trumped-up  to  hold  them." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  35 

Of  a  State  convict  camp  in  North  Carolina  the  following 
narration  was  made  by  one  who  escaped  from  there,  that  there 
were  twenty  other  New  York  youths  who  were  unable  to 
return  to  their  homes  and  enduring  great  torture  every  day. 
He  reported  that  for  refusing  to  work  because  of  lack  of  nourish- 
ment a  young  negro  was  shot  by  the  foreman  through  the  leg 
and  left  for  dead.  The  victim  "lay  for  days  without  medical 
aid,  and  was  finally  taken  away  "  to  an  unknown  destination! 

The  official  report  of  the  Georgia  State  Prison  Commission 
(1905-6),  explaining  the  decrease  in  the  number  of  misde- 
meanants on  the  county  chain  gangs  in  Georgia,  notwithstand- 
ing an  increase  among  the  felony  convicts,  said: 

"Owing  to  the  scarcity  of  labor,  farmers  who  are  able  to 
do  so  pay  the  fines  of  able-bodied  prisoners  and  put  them  on 
their  plantations  to  work  them  (the  fines)  out." 

A  special  commissioner  was  appointed  to  investigate  the 
convict  lease  camps  in  Georgia.  In  order  the  better  to  arrive 
at  the  truth  he  visited  these  camps  without  prior  announce- 
ment. Of  fifty-one  chain  gangs  visited  he  discovered  that 
"at  least  half  were  operated  exclusively  by  private  individuals 
who  had  practically  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  the  con- 
victs." 

"Seldom  was  provision  made  for  the  separation  of  the  sexes,  either 
during  work  by  day  or  sleep  by  night.  Little  or  no  attention  was  given 
to  the  comfort  or  sanitary  condition  of  the  sleeping  quarters,  and  women 
were  forced  to  do  men's  work  in  men's  attire.  The  murder  of  the  men 
and  the  outrage  of  the  women  in  these  camps,  the  political  pulls  by  which 
men  occupying  lofty  positions  in  the  State  were  shielded  and  saved  from 
indictment  by  grand  juries,  formed  the  subjects  of  many  indignant  editorials 
in  the  Atlanta  Constitution." 

In  some  of  these  private  camps  he  found  children  only  eight 
years  old,  with  convicts  committed  for  trivial  offences,  many 
of  them  without  shoes  and  clothes  able  to  protect  them,  and 
without  proper  food. 


36  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

In  one  instance  he  "found  eleven  men  sleeping  in  a  room  ten  feet  square 
and  but  seven  feet  from  floor  to  ceiling,  with  no  window  at  all,  but  one 
door  which  opened  into  another  room.  In  another  camp  the  convicts 
slept  in  tents  which  had  no  bunks,  no  mattresses,  and  not  even  a  floor. 
Fully  thirteen  of  the  camps  out  of  twenty-four  contained  neither  bunks 
nor  mattresess,  and  the  convicts  were  compelled  to  sleep  in  filthy,  vermin- 
ridden  blankets  on  the  ground.  And  the  men  were  obliged  to  sleep  chained 
together." 

Of  course,  under  such  conditions  there  was  no  proper  sanita- 
tion. This  commissioner's  report  of  the  horrors  of  these  camps 
is  in  many  cases  unprintable.  In  one  camp  one  out  of  every 
four  convicts  died  during  their  incarceration.  In  another  camp 
one  out  of  every  six  never  left  the  place  alive.  "In  twenty-one 
out  of  twenty-four  private  camps  there  were  neither  hospitable 
buildings  nor  arrangements  of  any  kind  for  the  sick."  There 
were  numerous  instances  of  sudden  deaths.  In  one  of  the 
camps  he  (Col.  Byrd)  visited  he  reported  that  shortly  before 
his  arrival  one  of  the  convicts  had  been  beaten  to  death  and 
his  remains  burned.  "A  reputable  citizen,"  said  Col.  Byrd, 
"told  me  that  he  had  seen  the  guards  beating  this  convict, 
and  that  in  their  anger  they  had  caught  him  by  the  shackles 
and  run  through  the  woods,  dragging  him  along  feet  foremost." 
According  to  this  citizen  he  had  gone  before  the  grand  jury 
and  testified  to  the  facts,  but  the  man  who  ran  the  camp  had 
many  friends  and  it  was  thought  best  to  hush  the  affair  up, 
"so  as  to  keep  it  out  of  the  newspapers  and  courts." 

The  superintendent  of  the  camp  claimed  that  the  negro 
"had  died  of  dropsy  and  was  buried  in  his  stripes  and  shackles 
to  save  time." 

Some  of  these  camps  are  worked  for  and  often  by  individuals 
contrary  to  law,  "who  hire  them  directly  from  the  authorities 
having  them  in  charge  after  conviction,  with  no  legal  warrant 
from  the  county  authorities  "  where  they  are  worked.  Thus 
the  convicts  are  "entirely  in  the  custody  and  control  of  private 
individuals." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  37 

Efforts  made  by  humane  persons  to  correct  these  abuses 
have  been  frustrated  by  men  high  in  authority.  Colonel  Byrd 
called  attention  to  the  fact  "  that  the  whole  political  machinery 
of  the  State  and  county  stood  in  with  the  lessees,  because  the 
first  money  earned  by  the  poor  victims  paid  the  cost  of  trial 
and  conviction.  Not  a  dollar  of  the  rental  for  the  convicts 
reached  the  county  treasury,  he  declared,  till  sheriff,  deputy 
sheriff,  county  solicitor,  bailiffs,  court  clerks,  justice  of  the 
peace,  constables  and  other  officials  who  aided  to  put  the 
convict  in  the  chain  gang  were  paid  their  fees  in  full.  'It 
is  not  to  be  supposed/  said  Colonel  Byrd,  'that  these  people 
would  be  in  favor  of  destroying  a  system  profitable  to  them- 
selves.' . 

"  There  are  in  Georgia  1,500  men  who  were  sold  to  the  highest 
bidder  the  1st  of  April,  1904,  for  a  period  of  five  years.  The 
Durham  Coal  and  Coke  Company  leased  150  convicts,  paying 
for  them  from  228  to  252  dollars  apiece  per  annum.  The 
Flower  Brothers  Lumber  Co.  leased  100  and  paid  240  dollars 
apiece  for  them  for  a  year.  Hamby  and  Toomer  leased  500, 
paying  221  dollars  a  head.  The  Lookout  Mountain  Coal  and 
Coke  Co.  took  100  at  223.75  dollars  a  head. 

"The  Chattahoochee  Brick  Co.  secured  175  men  at  223.7 
dollars  apiece  per  annum.  E.  J.  McRee  took  100  men  and 
paid  220.75  dollars  for  each.  In  its  report  the  Prison  Com- 
mission points  with  great  pride  to  the  fact  that  for  five  years, 
from  the  1st  of  April,  1904,  to  the  1st  of  April,  1909,  this  batch 
of  prisoners  alone  will  pour  annually  into  the  State  coffers 
the  gross  sum  of  340,000  dollars  with  a  net  of  225,000  dollars, 
which  will  be  distributed  proportionately  among  the  various 
counties  for  school  purposes." 

In  the  prosecution  of  cases  in  Alabama  it  was  shown  that 
trumped-up  charges  would  frequently  be  made  against  negroes 
on  such  trivial  complaints  as  letting  one  man's  mule  bite 
another  man's  corn.  "Each  man  would  be  taken  down  before 


38  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

a  Justice  of  the  Peace  without  the  knowledge  of  the  other 
and  persuaded  to  make  an  affidavit  against  the  other  for  an 
affray.  ...  An  affidavit  would  be  sworn  out,  but  never 
entered  upon  the  docket,  and  after  a  mock  trial  the  man  would 
be  sentenced  for  three  months  or  six  and  the  judgment  never 
entered  up." 

At  certain  seasons  in  Mississippi  the  farmers  secure  a  contract 
to  work  all  prisoners  sent  up  by  the  magistrates  or  other  courts. 
"As  spring  comes  on,  officers  of  the  law  become  exceedingly 
busy  looking  up  cases  of  vagrancy  or  misdemeanor,  so  as  to 
supply  their  regular  patrons." 

"Every  county  official  who  leases  or  permits  to  be  leased  a 
misdeameanor  convict  for  other  than  public  work  transgresses 
one  of  the  plainest  statutes  on  the  law  books  of  some  of  the 
States  in  which  the  offence  is  committed,  and  violates  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  besides.  There 
is  no  lack  of  law  by  which  to  punish  the  guilty,  but  they  are 
permitted  to  perpetrate  fearful  atrocities  upon  the  unfortunate 
and  helpless,  because  there  are  thousands  of  just  and  humane 
people  in  this  country  who  know  little  or  nothing  about  the 
methods  pursued  in  the  chain  gangs,  the  convict  lease  system 
and  the  contract  labor  system,  which  are  all  children  of  one 
wicked  and  hideous  mother,  peonage." 

It  may  not  be  conducive  to  the  perpetuity  of  a  condition  of  dis- 
franchised servitors  that  this  condition  of  peonage  should  con- 
tinue, but  that  is  a  question  with  which  these  pages  do  not  deal. 

In  a  report  for  the  two  years  ending  August  31,  1906,  of  the 
President  of  the  Board  of  Inspectors  of  Convicts  to  the  Governor 
of  Alabama,  he  says: 

"The  County  Convict  System,  if  anything,  is  worse  than  ever 
before  in  its  history.  The  demand  for  labor  and  fees  has  become 
so  great  that  most  of  them  now  go  to  the  mines,  where  many 
of  them  are  unfit  for  such  labor,  consequently  it  is  not  long 
before  they  pass  from  this  earth,  for  as  a  superintendent  of 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  39 

one  of  the  mines  once  said  that  the  company  had  only  two 
places  for  a  convict,  one  in  the  mines  and  the  other  in  the 
hospital.  This  system  should  be  wiped  out  of  existence,  and 
it  cannot  be  done  too  soon.  If  the  State  wishes  to  kill  its  con- 
victs, it  should  do  it  directly  and  not  indirectly.  ...  As 
it  is,  this  board  has  no  authority  or  power  to  transfer  a  county 
convict.  If  he  develops  tuberculosis  or  any  other  disease,  he 
has  to  take  his  chances  at  the  camp  at  which  he  is  located, 
and  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  this  means  death.  I  am 
well  aware  of  the  fact  that  this  would  add  additional  cost  to 
the  State,  but  conceding  this,  is  it  not  the  duty  of  the  State 
to  see  that  proper  treatment  is  accorded  these  poor  defenceless 
creatures,  many  of  whom  ought  never  to  have  been  arrested 
and  tried  at  all.  .  .  ." 

"I  have  not  changed  my  opinion  in  reference  to  the  jails 
of  the  State;  in  fact,  if  anything,  I  am  more  convinced  that 
the  ideas  of  humanity  and  civilization  would  be  better  carried 
out  if  the  torch  were  applied  to  every  jail  hi  Alabama.  It 
would  be  more  humane  and  far  better  to  stake  the  prisoner 
out  with  a  ring  around  his  neck  like  a  wild  animal  than  to  con- 
fine him  in  places  that  we  call  jails,  that  are  reeking  with  filth 
and  disease,  and  alive  with  vermin  of  all  kinds.  They  are  not 
only  harbingers  of  disease,  but  they  are  unquestionably  nurseries 
of  death.  To  see  a  man  strong  and  healthy  go  into  a  jail  in 
Alabama  and  in  a  few  months  come  out  a  physical  and  mental 
wreck  with  death  staring  him  in  the  face  is  not  an  overdrawn 
picture,  and  one  seen  more  often  than  the  general  public  would 
believe.  The  State  appropriates  thirty  cents  a  day  for  the 
feeding  of  prisoners,  and  yet  we  receive  prisoners  from  these 
same  jails  who  are  on  the  verge  of  collapse  for  the  want  of 
nourishment.  Surely  there  must  be  some  way  of  reaching 
those  in  authority.  .  .  ." 

This  is  not  the  language  of  a  biased  Northern  investigator, 
but  of  a  Southern  official. 


40  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

A  cultivated  writer,*  speaking  of  these  conditions  and  their 
lessons,  says: 

"The  negro  was  armed  with  the  suffrage  by  just  and  humane 
men  because  soon  after  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  the  legisla- 
tures of  the  Southern  States  began  to  enact  vagrant  or  peonage 
laws,  the  intent  of  which  was  to  reduce  the  newly  emancipated 
slaves  to  a  bondage  almost  as  cruel,  if  not  quite  as  cruel,  as 
that  from  which  they  had  just  been  delivered.  After  the  vote 
had  been  given  the  negro,  so  that  he  might  use  it  in  self -defence, 
the  peonage  laws  became  a  dead  letter  for  a  time  and  lay  dor- 
mant, so  to  speak,  until  disfranchisement  laws  were  enacted  in 
nearly  every  State  of  the  South.  The  connection  between 
disfranchisement  and  peonage  is  intimate  and  close.  The 
planter  sees  the  negro  robbed  of  his  suffrage  with  impunity, 
with  the  silent  consent  of  the  whole  country,  and  he  knows 
that  political  preferment  and  great  power  are  the  fruits  of  this 
outrage  upon  a  handicapped  and  persecuted  race.  He  is 
encouraged,  therefore,  to  apply  the  same  principle  for  profit's 
sake  to  his  business  affairs.  The  politician  declares  that  the 
negro  is  unfit  for  citizenship  and  violently  snatches  from  him 
his  rights.  The  planter  declares  the  negro  is  lazy  and  forces 
him  into  involuntary  servitude  contrary  to  the  law.  Each 
tyrant  employs  the  same  process  of  reasoning  to  justify  his 
course." 

Notwithstanding  occasional  prosecutions  in  isolated  instances, 
there  is,  either  on  the  part  of  those  conducting  or  resisting 
such  prosecutions  or  elsewhere,  no  confidence  abroad  that  the 
great  powers  of  the  United  States  are  to  be,  as  they  have  not 
been,  extensively  exerted  and  energized  in  the  persistent  dis- 
covery and  annihilation  of  practices  that  amount  to  peonage, 
and  which  have  become  weapons  by 'which  public  authorities 

*Mary  Church  Terrell,  "Peonage  in  the  United  States,"  in  the  August  number 
of  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  to  whom  the  thanks  of  the  compiler  of  this  vol- 
ume are  also  due  for  information  furnished. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  41 

execute  the  avowed  policy  of  communities  to  regulate  and 
"control"  labor. 

Indeed,  the  freedom  of  labor  is  yet  to  be  adequately  recog- 
nized and  established;  and  for  this  the  power  of  United  States 
authority  will  alone  meet  the  case. 

There  are  in  Alabama  twelve  Black  Counties  which  together 
are  nearly  as  large  in  area  as  the  entire  kingdom  of  Belgium. 
The  population  of  these  twelve  counties  was  in  1890  440,000, 
of  whom  350,000  were  colored.  The  soil  of  Belgium  supports 
eight  millions  of  people,  of  whom  one  and  a  half  million  are 
small  farmers.  More  than  half  the  farm  holdings  are  less  than 
one  and  a  quarter  acres  in  size.  The  average  size  of  a  farm  in 
Macon  County,  Alabama,  is  sixty  acres,  the  average  yield  of 
cotton  per  acre  is  about  a  quarter  of  a  bale.  If  land  were 
cultivated  in  the  South  as  it  is  in  Belgium,  such  a  farm  should 
yield  two,  perhaps  three  or  even  four,  bales  of  cotton  to  the 
acre.  An  intelligent  treatment  of  the  labor  conditions,  re- 
garding them  not  as  a  mysterious  and  hopeless  "race  problem  " 
but  purely  as  a  matter  of  public  economics,  might  bring  about 
an  increase  in  the  wealth  of  the  Southern  States  and  the  general 
prosperity  of  the  people  therein.  But  so  long  as  a  matter  of 
this  sort  is  regarded  exclusively  as  a  racial  issue,  and  while 
the  political  manhood  and  political  influence  of  the  colored 
population  is  assiduously  suppressed  to  the  point  of  discour- 
agement and  family  poverty,  how  are  conditions  to  be  indi- 
vidually, socially  and  politically  improved? 

M.  de  Lavelaye,  the  well-known  political  economist  and 
authority  on  the  land  question,  speaking  some  years  since  of 
the  thrift  of  the  Belgian  farmers  and  the  wonderful  results 
obtained  by  scientific  and  industrious  culture,  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  soil  of  that  country  was  not  by  nature  par- 
ticularly fertile,  but  had  been  rendered  so  by  what  is  probably 
the  most  hard-working  farming  community  in  the  world — 
the  Belgian  small-holders.  If  the  Cotton  States  would  learn 


42  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

a  lesson  from  Belgium  they  would  reap  from  the  soil  what  it 
ought  rightly  to  produce,  and  the  labor  question  would  cease 
to  be  a  race  problem. 

Indeed,  this  whole  cry  about  race  problem  is  a  bogy.  Nobody 
more  surely  than  the  men  in  either  the  Union  or  the  Confederate 
armies  would  have  denied,  if  appealed  to,  that  the  war  in  which 
they  were  engaged  was  prosecuted  by  either  side  "to  settle 
the  race  question";  yet  a  United  States  Senator*  claims. 
forty  years  after  the  war,  that  it  was  waged  to  settle  the  race 
question.  "We  find,"  he  says,  "things  more  threatening  in 
some  of  their  aspects  than  ever  before."  If  this  be  so,  sound 
statesmanship  demands  an  analysis  of  the  situation  and  the 
projection  of  remedies,  if  any  be  possible.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  statement  be  not  true,  then  the  conditions  in  the 
time  of  slavery  must  present  an  envious  contrast  with  the  de- 
plorable conditions  of  to-day.  In  either  view,  the  attention 
of  the  whole  nation,  rather  than  of  a  special  community,  is 
emphatically  demanded.  The  Southern  people  "are  resolved 
to  prevent  social  and  political  equality.  .  .  ."  "We  settled 
slavery" — again  we  are  quoting  the  above  referred  to  Senator, 
speaking  in  the  Senatef — "and  we  settled  the  question  of 
nationality.  We  destroyed  one,  and  we  settled  forever  the 
question  whether  we  were  a  confederation  or  a  nation.  We 
are  a  nation  with  a  big  'N/  but  the  Southern  half  of  this  coun- 
try has  no  conception  of  the  word  'Nation/  except  that  it  is 
connected  with  the  word  'nigger.'  The  more's  the  pity!" 

The  last  three  Amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution  have  been  the 
subject  of  much  abuse  in  certain  quarters,  and  they  are  the  chief  political 
capital  in  several  States.  The  following  colloquy  between  Senator  Tillman 
and  Senator  Pritchard  took  place  in  the  Senate  in  1900,  when  Senator 
Pritchard  was  denouncing  the  efforts  to  nullify  these  Amendments: 

TILLMAN:  "When  in  a  Southern  State  Negro  postmasters  are  forced 
on  the  people,  and  at  the  North  there  are  no  Negro  postmasters,  how  can 
we  separate  the  Negro  from  the  Republican  party?  " 

*  Tillmau.  t  Cong.  Rec.,  59th  Congress  p   1044 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  43 

PRITCHARD:  "There  it  is  again,  Mr.  President.  You  might  read  the  Ten 
Commandments  to  my  distinguished  friend  from  South  Carolina  and  he 
would  yell  'Negro'  back  at  you." 

TILLMAN:  "If  you  read  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amend- 
ments at  me,  I  certainly  should  yell  'nigger'  back  at  you,  because  they 
are  chock-full  of  'nigger'  and  nothing  else."* 

Such  inflammatory  talk  stirs  up  race  passions  and  is  emi- 
nently unfair.  Such  speeches  are  on  a  par  with  plays  like 
"The  Clansman. "f  Both  do  incalculable  harm.  Hon.  Joseph 
B.  Fleming,  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  has  characterized  that  play  as 
"fiendish  and,  worse  still,  cowardly."  He  referred  to  its  ex- 
preacher-author  as  one 

"who  in  our  own  day  has  turned  playwright  and,  calling  to  his  aid  all 
of  the  accessories  of  the  stage  and  all  of  the  realisms  of  the  living  drama, 
seeks  to  fan  into  flame  the  fiercest  passions  of  the  whites  and  blacks.  His 
chief  purpose  seems  to  be  to  force  into  immediate  conflagration  combustible 
materials,  which  his  heated  imagination  tells  him  must  burn  some  time 
in  the  future.  Apparently  he  chafes  under  the  delay  of  Providence  in 
bringing  on  the  ghastly  spectacle,  and  yearns  to  witness  with  his  own  eyes 
in  the  flesh  that  reign  of  hell  on  earth  before  his  own  redeemed  soul  is 
ushered  into  the  calm,  serene  and  gentle  presence  of  Him  whose  gospel 
of  love  and  light  he  once  preached  to  erring  men." 

Whenever  one  of  the  colored  people  protests  against  "jim- 
crowism,"  the  cry  is  raised  that  he  is  clamoring  for  "social 
equality,"  whereas  he  is  simply  asking  to  have  an  equal  chance 
in  the  affairs  of  the  social  fabric  of  the  nation  of  which  he  is  a 
citizen.  Again,  if  he  cry  out  against  "  lily-whiteism  " — favorit- 
ism and  discrimination  in  public  office — it  is  said  that  he  is 
trying  to  disrupt  the  Republican  party,  whereas  he  is  only 
asking  "for  participation  in  his  party  councils  at  a  ratio  pro- 
portionate to  his  true  voting  power  in  the  general  elections." 

*  Cong.  Rec.,  59th  Congress,  p.  1044. 

t  Its  author  is  quoted  as  saying: 

"It  is  impossible  that  the  negro  should  remain  in  the  South.  When  he  becomes 
educated  he  becomes  all  the  more  impossible.  I  do  not  think  the  white  man  in  America 
will  eventually  give"  (i.e.  have  not  done  so  now?)  "the  negro  equal  rights  either 
North  or  South  or  anywhere,  ,  ,  ," 


IV 

"  If  we  are  men  we  will  pass  by  with  contemptuous  disdain  alike  the 
advisers  who  would  seek  to  lead  us  into  the  paths  of  ignoble  ease  and  those 
who  would  teach  us  to  admire  successful  wrongdoing. — Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Here  is  what  an  observant  student  of  Southern  conditions 
has  to  say: 

"Colored  children  are  not  being  fitted  as  are  white  for  their 
responsibilities.  A  real  intellectual  awakening  is  going  on 
among  the  whites  of  the  South — more  and  better  school- 
houses,  better  teachers  and  longer  school  terms — and  the  white 
children  are  learning  with  avidity.  The  colored  children  are 
getting  poor  school-houses,  poorer  teachers,  more  poorly  paid 
teachers  and  shorter  school  terms,  and  we  cannot  change  this 
disparity  by  begging  the  State  and  City.  Unless  we  force 
better  things  for  ourselves  by  the  ballot,  or  go  into  our  own 
pockets,  the  next  generation  of  colored  voters  will  be  relatively 
less  prepared  for  the  educational  qualification,  in  comparison 
to  the  white  voter,  than  the  colored  voters  of  to-day.  ...  I 
know  the  white  school-house  and  the  colored  country  school- 
house.  There  is  a  tremendous  difference.  Now,  I  believe  in 
education,  but  I  also  believe  in  manhood  ;  and  any  educa- 
tion bought  at  the  price  of  manhood  is  worthless  and  a 
millstone  about  the  neck.  I  believe  in  the  ballot  as  a  developer 
of  manhood  and,  as  it  procures  the  rights  of  men,  I  believe 
in  the  ballot  in  spite  of  threats  of  disfranchisement  if  we  use 
this  ballot.  I  see  no  difference  in  purpose  between  the  States 
that  have  directly  disfranchised  and  those  that  do  it  stealthily 
and  by  indirection."  * 

*  John  Hope,  The  Negro  and  the  Elective  Franchise,  p.  60;  Occasional  Papers,  No.  11. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  45 

That  this  is  a  true  analysis  no  one  will  deny  who  Is  ac- 
quainted with  the  way  in  which  the  oligarchy,  aided  by  their 
Northern  allies  and  by  Northern  apathy,  is  to-day  ordering 
things  in  the  South  according  to  their  sweet  will,  on  lines 
looking  to  the  subjection  of  the  negro  there  to  a  state  of  sub- 
serviency and  political  helotry. 

A  rece'ht  writer  has  justly  observed: 

"The  North  has  grown  silent  and  has  held  hands  off  in  matters 
pertaining  to  our  (colored  people's)  welfare.  .  .  .  It  is 
afraid  of  hurting  the  feelings  of  the  white  South.  .  . 
Sectionally  it  has  become  hypnotized  by  the  assiduous  efforts 
of  these  men  who,  with  others,  have  succeeded  in  muzzling 
the  press,  muzzling  the  pulpit,  muzzling  the  platform,  muzzling 
the  mouths  of  nearly  all  who  in  the  past  saw  any  good  in  the 
negro  people." 

He  says  that  even  the  clergy  have  been  subsidized,  and  that 
the  negro  "gets  more  consideration  in  the  saloons,  in  the 
brothels,  in  the  dives,  in  the  prize-ring,  than  in  the  churches. 
.  .  .  For  this  the  white  clergy  are  largely  to  blame.  .  .  ."* 

The  North  is  particeps  criminis  with  the  South  through 
sanctioning  by  pen  or  by  silence  the  determination  of  the  South 
to  force  the  negro  to  the  wall,  and  make  him  a  disfranchised 
servitor. 

Repression  of  free  men,  as  a  rule  of  political  conduct,  is  and 
always  has  been  a  failure.  "It  leads  nowhere.  It  raises  no 
man."  It  upholds  ignorance.  It  discourages  intelligence, 
and  breeds  discontent.  Laws  to  that  end  lead  not  to  good 
government,  but  to  build  up  an  office-holding  oligarchy  by 
keeping  the  races  at  strife.  Repression,  and  not  expansion  of 
individual  uplifting,  will  never  promote  the  welfare  of  a  true 
democracy. 

A  Congressman  |  said  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  in 
a  speech  on  the  Reduction  Bill  of  1905: 

*  W.  S-  Scarborough  +  Hon.  E.  D.  Crumpacker. 


46  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"The  policy  of  holding  the  negro  in  complete  and  perpetual 
subordination  would  be  absolutely  destructive  of  republican 
government,  and  it  cannot  be  thought  of  with  complacency. 
If  the  colored  race  advances  it  must  be  possessed  of  ambitions 
and  hopes  for  higher  things,  and  it  will  insist  upon  the  funda- 
mental rights  of  citizenship." 

All  this  academic  talk  about  the  dangers  to  society  or  good 
government  of  the  so-called  ignorant  vote — North  or  South, 
colored  or  white,  in  densely  populated  cities,  or  in  the  black 
belts  of  the  cotton  States — is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  screen 
to  conceal  the  designs  of  the  dominant  school  of  politicians 
and  their  plutocratic  allies  to  take  the  ballot  away  from  the 
working  classes,  lest  those  who  labor  with  their  hands  in  the 
fields  or  in  the  mill  use  their  lawful  power  of  political  manhood 
to  quench  the  schemes  of  plutocratic  rule. 

The  colored  vote  whenever  it  has  been  cast  has  been  uplifting, 
on  the  side  of  good  government,  and  for  the  best  interests  of 
the  people  at  large. 

Reference  by  the  negro  alarmists  to  the  passions  of  the  Re- 
constructive period  are  unfortunate,  for  when  first  enfranchised 
the  negro  vote  accorded  with  good  sense,  the  dictates  of  hu- 
manity, and  the  highest  welfare  of  the  Republic.  The  ascend- 
ency it  reared,  however  much  it  has  been  falsified  and  vilified 
by  fiction  writers  or  pretentious  historians,  was  demanded  by 
national  exigency,  and  was  preferable  to  the  Black  Codes  that 
sought  to  nullify  emancipation  and  the  Thirteenth  Amendment, 
and  practically  to  reestablish  an  industrial  slavery.  "There 
was  no  middle  ground";  it  was  a  choice  between  the  Black 
Codes*  and  all  they  meant  and  the  evils  in  such  temporary 
free  government  as  could  then  be  organized. 

"And  the  negro  voted  for  free  government.  In  so  doing 
he  rendered  an  inestimable  service  to  the  nation.  Let  every 
serious  American  reflect  on  this— that  it  was  the  negro  vote 

*  For  further  observations  on  Black  Codes,  see  Chap.  XIVf 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  47 

which  elected  General  Grant  as  President  of  the  United  States 
in  1868.  That  is  to  say,  if  the  negro  vote  had  been  suppressed 
in  1868  as  it  is  to-day,  the  votes  of  the  solid  South,  added 
to  the  eighty  scattering  votes  which  Mr.  Seymour  received 
in  the  North,  would  have  elected  him  President  over  General 
Grant,  the  hero  of  Appomattox.  So  that,  in  the  very  first 
Presidential  election  following  the  war,  it  was  the  negro  vote 
which  saved  from  humiliating  defeat  the  greatest  military 
genius  of  the  age — the  man  above  all  others  then  living  to 
whom  the  nation  owes  its  life.  If  Mr.  Seymour  had  been 
elected  and  the  South  had  come  back  into  the  Union,  and  by 
its  solidity  had  gained  the  ascendency  in  the  government  in 
1868,  the  gravity  of  the  complications  which  would  have 
ensued  cannot  be  exaggerated.  In  1876  the  negro  vote  again 
decided  the  Presidential  election,  giving  the  electoral  vote 
of  South  Carolina,  Florida  and  Louisiana  to  Mr.  Hayes,  whom 
a  single  vote  would  have  defeated.  .  .  .  An  examina- 
tion of  the  election  returns  in  1880  in  Connecticut,  Colorado, 
Indiana,  New  York,  Oregon  and  Rhode  Island  will  also  show 
that  it  was  the  negro  vote  in  these  States  that  elected  General 
Garfield  to  the  Presidency.  The  returns  of  the  election  of 
1888  also  disclose  the  fact  that  the  negro  vote  in  Illinois, 
Indiana,  New  York,  Ohio  and  Rhode  Island  determined  the 
election  of  General  Benjamin  Harrison  as  President. 

"  The  credit  is  given  to  the  negro  vote  because  it  is  the  only 
vote  that  is  contested,  and  gigantic  efforts  have  been  and  are 
being  made  to  destroy  it.  If  it  had  been  fully  suppressed 
throughout  the  country,  then,  as  we  have  seen,  the  solid  South 
would  have  defeated  Grant  in  1868,  Hayes  in  1876,  Garfield 
in  1880,  Harrison  in  1888,  and  McKinley  in  1896.*  Besides, 

*  Statistics  have  been  compiled  by  Mr.  George  Crawford,  of  New  Haven, 
Connecticut,  showing  that  negro  voters  now  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  several 
Northern  States,  and  that  there  are  negro  voters  as  follows  in  the  States  named,  viz.: 
Massachusetts,  10,456;  Rhode  Island,  2,765;  New  York,  51  425;  New  Jersey,  21,474; 
Pennsylvania,  51,668;  Delaware,  8,374;  Ohio,  31,235;  Indiana,  46,418;  West  Virginia, 
14,786.  The  electoral  vote  of  those  States  is  171;  necessary  for  a  choice  in  the  Elec- 


48  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

neither  the  McKinley  nor  the  Dingley  tariff  measures  would 
have  been  possible  if  the  negro  vote  had  been  suppressed 
throughout  the  country  as  it  is  in  South  Carolina  and  Mis- 
sissippi to-day.  It  has  so  happened  that  in  each  instance 
the  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  which  has  enacted 
the  great  national  policies  of  the  government  from  the  time 
of  reconstruction  in  1868  .  .  .  has  been  due  to  the  ballot 
in  the  hands  of  the  colored  man.  It  thus  becomes  evident  that 
if  by  defamation  and  persecution  of  the  colored  man  his  ballot 
can  be  destroyed,  the  autocrats  of  the  solid  South  would  have 
a  clear  chance  to  gain  control  of  the  government,  shape  its 
destiny  and  entrench  the  barbarous  traditions  of  slavery."* 

That  oligarchy  in  control  has  fastened  itself  to  the  com- 
mercial lines  of  the  nation's  harness,  and  strives  to  pull  the 
industrialism  of  the  country  within  its  vicious  circle. 

It  is  puerile  to  insist  that  this  pernicious  situation  is  only  a 
matter  of  local  concern.  It  is  a  poison  in  the  national  life. 
It  is  a  cancer  in  the  body  politic.  It  is  more  vital  than  all  the 
other  problems  together. 

To  this  oligarchy  the  Democracy  of  the  North  is  so  much 
attached,  and  upon  it  so  relies,  that  no  considerations  of  merit, 
or  of  patriotism,  could  persuade  Democratic  partisans  to  assist 
in  overthrowing  present  conditions. 

In  all  these  ten  states  (Alabama,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Georgia, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Texas, 
Virginia),  having  88  members  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
only  one  Republican  member  was  returned  to  the  Fifty-eighth 
or  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress.  He  is  from  the  Ninth  District 
of  Virginia,  and  were  the  Democrats  in  the  majority  in  the 
National  House  of  Representatives  a  successful  contest  might 
be  expected  over  his  seat. 

toral  College,  242.     The  electoral  vote  of  States  where  the  negro  vote  counts  at  par, 
namely,  Delaware,  New  Jersey,  Rhode  Island  and  West  Virginia,  64.     Probable  number 
of  Congressional  districts  in  which  negroes  hold  balance  of  power,  26. 
*  Sinclair's  Aftermath  of  Slavery. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  49 

Thus  87  of  the  135  Democrats  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  represented  districts  where 
there  is  either  no  expressed  Republican  opposition  whatever, 
or  only  a  nominal  opposition  to  their  candidacy  and  what 
they  stand  for. 

Allied  as  the  oligarchy  is  with  partisan  adherents  in  the 
Border  States,  and  with  organized  support  of  tongue,  and  pen, 
and  press,  and  money,  and  of  all  the  interlaced  influences  of 
trade,  commerce  and  finance,  the  free  and  untrammelled  com- 
munities of  the  North  and  West  are,  in  many  a  close  State  and 
district,  at  the  mercy  of  the  oligarchy's  intrigues,  devices  and  ef- 
forts, almost  impossible  to  be  seasonably  discovered  and  averted. 

The  Republicans  of  the  country  thus  enter  upon  every 
Presidential  election  with  over  one  hundred  electoral  votes 
solidly  against  them. 

Eighty  odd  votes  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  twenty 
votes  in  the  United  States  Senate,  108  votes  in  the  Electoral 
College,  are,  regardless  of  men  or  of  measures,  irretrievably  bal- 
anced against  the  aims  and  purposes  of  the  Republican  party. 

In  no  civilized  country  in  the  world,  pretending  to  be  based 
on  suffrage,  would  such  a  condition  of  affairs  be  tolerated.  It 
would  be  revolution  to  create  it.  Acquiescence  in  it  is  really 
revolution.  Is  anything  to  be  learned  that  is  not  known  to 
every  intelligent  citizen  respecting  this  condition  of  affairs? 
The  first  natural  step  by  way  of  remedy  should  be  taken  at 
once.  Pass  a  bill  reducing  the  representation — not  a  reappor- 
tionment  bill,  but  a  simple  reduction  bill. 

To  Congress,  and  to  Congress  only,  belongs  this  initiatory 
remedy.  It  must  come  from  political  action  and  in  no  other 
way.  By  the  action  of  Congress  only  can  a  new  public  life 
and  wholesome  spirit  be  awakened  in  States  where  a  large 
fraction  of  voters,  white  as  well  as  black,  are  without  voice 
in  political  affairs. 

It  will  help  at  once  to  offset  such  gross  unfairness  and  in- 


50  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

equality  as  gives  to  those  ten  States,  casting  a  Presidential  vote 
in  1904  of  only  1,132,888  votes,  88  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  108  votes  in  the  Electoral  College;  while 
New  York  State,  with  half  a  million  more  votes — viz.,  1,617,770 
for  Presidential  electors  in  1904 — enjoys  only  thirty-seven  (37) 
Representatives  in  the  House  and  39  votes  in  the  Electoral 
College!  More  than  two  to  one  is  the  inequality  in  this 
instance. 

Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Florida  and  Texas  counted  in  1904 
for  Presidential  Electors  an  aggregate  vote  of  608,552.  They 
returned  in  all  39  members  in  the  National  House  of  Representa- 
tives and  47  votes  in  the  Electoral  College.  Connecticut  and 
New  Jersey  cast  in  1904  for  President  623,663  votes,  yet  have 
only  15  members  of  the  House  and  19  votes  in  the  Electoral 
College.  More  than  two  to  one  is  the  inequality  here. 

Alabama,  Arkansas,  Georgia  and  Mississippi  aggregated  in 
1904  for  President  413,516  votes  and  possess  35  members  of 
the  House  and  43  votes  in  the  Electoral  College;  while  Massa- 
chusetts alone  cast  in  1904  for  President  445,098  votes  and 
possesses  only  14  Representatives  in  the  House  and  16  votes 
in  the  Electoral  College.  More  than  two  to  one  again  in  this 
instance.  Oregon  and  Idaho  aggregated  in  the  1904  election 
for  President  162,754  votes,  and  possess  only  three  members 
of  the  House  and  7  votes  in  the  Electoral  College;  while  Florida, 
South  Carolina  and  Louisiana,  recording  in  1904  for  President 
only  150,127  votes,  enjoy  the  representation  of  17  members 
of  the  National  House,  and  23  votes  in  the  Electoral  College. 
An  inequality  in  this  instance  of  17  to  3!  Nearly  six  to  one. 

In  Ohio  alone  1,004,393  votes  were  cast  in  1904  for  President 
and  about  the  same  aggregate  (1,016,467)  is  recorded  for  all 
the  nine  Coast  States  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande. 
Yet  those  nine  States,  from  Virginia  to  Texas  inclusive,  possess 
81  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  99  votes  in 
the  Electoral  College,  while  Ohio  suffers  with  only  23  electoral 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  51 

votes  and  21  members  in  the  National  House  of  Representa- 
tives. About  four  to  one  in  this  instance. 

In  ten  States  (namely,  Alabama  181,471,  Arkansas  87,157, 
Florida  61,417,  Georgia  223,073,  Louisiana  147,348,  Mis- 
sissippi 197,936,  North  Carolina  127,114,  South  Carolina 
152,860,  Texas  136,835,  Virginia  146,122)  there  are  1,461,373 
colored  male  citizens  of  voting  age  who  in  practice  are  not 
allowed  the  suffrage. 

Out  of  the  above  named  147,348  colored  votables  in  Louisiana 
there  were  registered  only  1,342. 

A  cry  comes  up  from  little  Delaware  saying  if  Georgia  with 
40,847  votes  in  1902  gets  eleven  Congressmen,  Delaware  with 
41,872  votes  is  in  equity  entitled  to  more  than  one  Representa- 
tive in  Congress! 

General  Grosvenor  was  elected  to  the  58th  Congress  from 
the  XI  Ohio  District  upon  an  aggregate  vote  in  the  District 
of  42,611,  which  is  24,553  more  votes  than  the  total  vote  in 
Mississippi  at  the  same  election  that  sent  eight  Representatives 
to  the  same  Congress. 

Mr.  Crumpacker,  in  the  same  Congress,  represented  a  District, 
X  Indiana,  where  46,158  votes  were  cast  at  the  same  election, 
being  13,973  more  than  were  polled  for  all  the  districts  in 
South  Carolina  for  seven  members  of  the  same  House. 

At  that  election  the  largest  vote  cast  in  a  South  Carolina 
Congressional  District  was  5,140.  Measured  by  it,  one  vote  in 
South  Carolina  was  equivalent  for  national  purposes  to  nine 
votes  in  Indiana.  An  inequality  in  this  instance  of  nine  to 
one! 

"...  The '  Democracy '  of  the  State  of  B.  R.  Tillman  sent  to 
the  Congress  in  the  election  of  1902  its  entire  delegation  of  seven 
members  upon  a  combined  'Democratic'  vote  of  29,343. 
The  total  vote  returned  for  all  candidates  was  32,185.  The 
white  voting  population  is  130,374.  The  total  voting  popula- 
tion of  the  State  is  283,325.  The  fact  is  evident  from  this 


52  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

showing  that  the  white  vote  of  South  Carolina  is  not  in  evidence 
as  supporting  the  oligarchy  in  this  State. 

".  .  .  The  total  number  of  males  of  voting  age  in  Ala- 
bama is  232,294  whites  and  181,471  blacks,  making  in  all 
413,765.  Alabama's  oligarchy  polled,  in  the  gubernatorial 
election  of  1902,  67,649  'Democratic'  ballots  for  governor, 
and  there  is  a  vote  of  24,190  accredited  to  the  Republican 
candidate.  There  were  2,980  colored  citizens  permitted  to 
register  and  participate  in  this  election.  .  . 

".  .  .  The  entire  delegation  from  the  State  of  Mississippi 
was  elected  to  the  Fifty-eighth  Congress  upon  a  combined  vote 
of  18,058.  This  State  has  a  white  voting  population  of  150,922, 
the  total  voting  population  being  349,177."* 

In  the  Presidential  election  of  1904,  the  aggregate  popular 
vote  in  all  the  States  is  stated  at  13,507,249,  while  in  the  ten 
States  where  the  suffrage  is  confessedly  discriminating  only 
1,122,838  votes  are  recorded  as  the  aggregate — less  than  one- 
twelfth  of  the  total  vote.  Yet  for  this  less  than  one-twelfth 
fraction  of  all  the  votes  in  all  the  States  there  are  seated  nearly 
one-quarter  of  the  total  membership  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives (88  out  of  386)  and  108  votes  out  of  the  476  Electoral 
votes  for  President. 

In  other  words,  less  than  a  twelfth  of  the  recorded  voters, 
and  in  reality  a  smaller  number  of  the  actual  votables,  have 
succeeded  in  organizing  a  faction  for  purposes  of  its  own,  and 
in  cementing  to  itself  the  Democratic  party,  in  order  to  capture 
the  reins  of  national  power,  and  thus  to  dominate  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  laws  and  in  the  legislation  of  the  country. 

Can  this  be  tolerated?  Shall  it  be  tolerated?  Shall  the 
Republican  party  become  responsible  for  this  toleration? 

The  patience  of  the  American  people  is  marvelous.  In  any 
other  country,  pretending  to  rest  its  affairs  upon  the  suffrage, 
such  a  condition  and  such  a  prospect  would  breed  revolution. 

*  J.  C.  Manning. 


SECTIONALISM    UN  At  ASKED  53 

Archbishop  Ireland  in  a  speech  (1906)  is  reported  to  have 
sapiently  observed: 

"To  every-day  patriotism  I  convoke  you,  citizens  of  America. 
The  Republic  is  in  danger  from  evil  citizenship  no  less  than 
from  armed  foe. 

"Evil  citizenship — it  lies  in  the  violation  of  law.  He  who 
despises  in  word  or  act  an  enactment  of  the  country's  authorities 
despises  the  country;  he  who  rebels  against  its  will  in  every- 
day life  aims  a  mortal  blow  to  its  sovereignty  and  its  safety 
no  less  than  if  he  sought  its  life  in  open  warfare." 

The  oligarchy  now  in  control  of  the  Southern  "system" 
finds  powerful  allies,  if  not  masters,  in  the  great  combinations 
of  capital  that  revel  in  its  favors.  The  little  groups  of  its 
little  men  that  sit  in  Congress  for  it,  and  by  its  leave,  join 
with  other  groups  to  log-roll  extravagance  in  appropriations, 
and  to  legislate  for  the  favored  schemes  selected  for  that  pur- 
pose. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Republican  allied  groups  are 
not  uniformly  innocent. 

Some  of  the  most  vicious  legislation  proposed  by  favorites 
of  the  "system"  has  been  acquiesced  in  and  enacted  by  the 
passive  aid  of  Republicans.  Is  this  from  indifference,  for 
considerations,  or  why?  No  matter.  Groups  exist  in  every 
legislative  body,  and  eighty-eight  members  of  the  House,  and 
twenty  senators,  form  a  tremendous  nucleus  around  which  to 
build  "combinations." 

It  is  rare  that  votes  in  Congress  divide  on  party  lines. 

Does  a  railroad  wish  a  subsidy  under  the  guise  of  a  special 
contract  for  "  fast  mail "  service?  There  stand  several  members 
of  the  "system"  anxious  to  promote  its  cause.  Always  be- 
longing, as  the  men  from  the  South  do,  to  one  and  the  same 
political  party,  no  movement  to  expose  the  subtle  influence, 
for  instance,  of  the  Southern  Railway  in  the  Coast  States  can 
ever  there  incite  or  attach  itself  to  independent  political  action. 


54  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

PLUTOCRACY  in  its  most  powerful  and  offensive  phases  absorbs 
the  life  and  energies  of  every  political  action  in  those  States. 

Notwithstanding  the  passage  of  an  occasional  bill  for  low 
fares  on  railroads,  plutocracy  reigns  supreme  in  each  Legisla- 
ture. Thus  speaks  a  Democrat: 

"The  party  machinery  of  the  Democratic  party  is  prostituted 
to  the  vile  uses  of  the  corporation  lobbyists,  and  the  negro 
vote  is  held  in  reserve  to  be  used  as  a  club  to  beat  down  any 
organized  opposition.  ...  A  Republican  Wall  Street 
outlaw  uses  the  machinery  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Georgia 
to  trample  upon  the  Constitution  and  plunder  the  people. 
.  .  .  What  is  the  secret  of  this  astonishing  situation? 
Bribery,  direct  and  indirect  bribery.  Daily  and  weekly  news- 
papers subsidized;  rebates  given  to  certain  shippers;  favors 
granted  where  they  will  do  most  good;  campaign  funds  supplied 
to  needy  candidates;  free  passes  dealt  out  by  the  bushel;  princely 
salaries  paid  to  plausible  lobbyists.  Bribery. 


"So  vast  is  the  power  of  corporations  to  reward  or  punish, 
enrich  or  impoverish,  that  individuals  sink  into  nothingness 
by  comparison.  No  man  is  beyond  their  reach.  .  .  .  Some- 
where within  the  little  world  in  which  he  lives  they  will  find 
some  one  who  will  yield  to  their  temptation  or  surrender  to 
their  power  to  hurt.  .  .  .  Then,  again,  the  newspapers — 
those  busy  bees — can  be  so  trained  by  corporation  cunning 
that  they  will  give  us  their  sting  instead  of  their  honey." 

Regarding  $142,000  voted  by  the  58th  Congress  to  the 
Southern  Railway,  the  same  statesman  declares  it  "a  shame- 
less, impudent,  vulgar,  common  steal,  nothing  else.  Pre- 
tense of  '  fast  mail  for  the  South '  without  truth.  Under  an 
ordinary  contract  for  mail  carriage,  the  government  can  secure 
precisely  the  same  service  as  the  railroad  gives  in  return  for 
the  subsidy.  .  .  .  The  plea  that  this  is  done  for  the  benefit 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  55 

of  the  South  merits  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  every  decent 
Southern  man.  .  .  .  Those  who  excuse  their  votes  upon 
that  pretense  are  hypocrites  or  dupes.  .  .  . 

This  is  quoting  the  language  of  an  eminent  ''independent/' 
whose  chief  opposition  to  the  Democracy  seems  to  arise  from 
his  factious  failure  to  control  that  party.  He  elsewhere  says 
that  the  "plutocracy"  issue  "their  orders  to  the  lobbyist,  to 
the  politician,  to  the  editor,  and  the  covert  threat  always 
goes  with  the  order:  '  Do  this,  or  off  goes  your  head! " 

"It  (the  oligarchy)  has  been  shrewd  enough  to  take  into 
co-partnership  a  sufficient  number  of  Southern  men  eager  to 
make  money.  It  has  taken  in  Southern  editors  whose  news- 
papers need  financial  support,  leading  lawyers  hungry  for 
good  fees,  ambitious  politicians  who  need  campaign  funds, 
and  thus  a  fictitious  public  sentiment  has  been  created" 
.  .  .  under  which  ...  it  is  almost  impossible  "to 
throw  off  the  yoke." 

"Even  our  public  highways,  the  soil  of  which  belongs  to 
the  private  owners  on  either  side  of  the  road,  subject  only  to 
the  easement  of  travel,  have  been  given,  free  of  charge,  by  the 
State  Legislature  to  the  telegraph  and  telephone  companies, 
financed  from  Wall  Street  and  run  without  the  slightest  re- 
gard for  the  people,  whose  lands  have  been  stolen  under  the 
forms  of  law."  .  .  .  The  Southern  States  are,  "in  every 
sense  of  the  word,"  "  provinces — political  and  financial  prov- 
inces." .  .  .  "The  Southern  Democrats  will  accept  and 
vote  for  any  platform  whatsoever,  any  candidate  whatso- 
ever, which  the  Wall  Street  millionaires  who  finance  the 
party  have  decided  upon."  .  .  .  "The  editor  knows 
that  he  must  knock  the  life  out  'of  any  objectionable  bill/ 
or  the  subsidy  which  keeps  his  paper  going  will  be  withdrawn." 
.  .  .  "With  the  present  management  the  question  is  one 
of  policy,  not  principle." 

"No  MATTER  WHAT  DIRECTION  PROGRESS  WOULD  LIKE  TO 


56  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

TAKE  IN  THE  SOUTH  SHE  IS  HELD  BACK  BY  THE  NEVER  FAILING 

CRY  OF  '  NIGGER.'  ...  No  matter  what  reforms  we  need 
and  approve,  no  matter  what  abuses  afflict  us  politically  or  indus- 
trially, we  must  submit  because  of  the  '  nigger.'  We  may  want 
this,  that  or  the  other  in  the  way  of  good  things,  such  as  other 
communities  are  enjoying,  but  we  are  denied  them  because  of 
the  ever  present  and  ever  fertile  '  Regro  Question.'  *  ... 
THERE  is  ABSOLUTELY  NO  END  TO  THE  VARIETY  OF  WAYS  IN 
WHICH  DEMOCRATIC  COOKS  CAN  SERVE  UP  THIS  TOOTHSOME 
POLITICAL  VIAND." 

This  is  the  testimony  of  an  able  Southern  statesman  who  just 
now  is  "outside  the  breastworks"  of  the  Democratic  party. 
Unjustly  bewailing  his  own  futile  leadership — for  he  has  ability, 
fairness  and  hosts  of  troops  to  follow  if  he  would  gallantly 
assault  the  citadel  he  makes  faces  at — this  useful  publicist 
exclaims  that  "  What  the  Southern  Democracy  will  NOT  endorse 
is  precisely  the  thing  which  remains  to  be  discovered." 

Yet  the  courage  of  this  truthful  witness  quails,  and  his  noisy 
assault  falters,  and  then  deplorably  fails,  under  the  very  cry 
he  derides  of  the  "Negro  Question";  lest,  as  he  says,  some  cir- 
cumstance might "  revive  Reconstruction  passions  and  conflicts." 

Curious  phenomenon,  that  an  American  leader  of  political 
thought  and  action  should  bow  down  before  such  a  phantom 
fear,  and  yet  expect  to  inaugurate  a  "revolt  of  Southern  man- 
hood to  shake  off  the  intolerable  bonds,  and  to  reassert  true 
manliness,  true  independence  and  the  reign  of  the  law,  founded 
upon  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  men."f 

*  By  the  last  Census  (1900)  in  two  States  only,  viz.,  Mississippi  and  South  Carolina, 
are  the  colored  people  in  the  majority. 

In  a  group  of  States  disfranchising  the  colored  voters,  viz.,  N.  C.,  S.  C.,  Vs.,  Ala., 

Miss,  and  La.,  the  white  population  is 5,396,649  55  per  cent. 

The  colored  population  is 4,453,253  45  per  cent. 

Total 9,849,902       100  per  cent. 

tThe  quotations  as  indicated  in  the  foregoing  extracts  may  be  found  in  "  Editorials 
by  Thomas  E.  Watson  "  in  his  April  and  July,  1905,  magazines. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  57 

There  is  nothing  Democratic  in  the  Southern  democracy.* 
It  is  all  partisanship,  and  partisanship  that  revolves  around 
the  question  as  to  what  is  most  expedient  for  the  oligarchy. 
The  power  of  the  latter  subsists  on  deception.  At  the  slightest 
symptom  of  revolt  the  cry  is  announced  and  re-echoed  by  the 
sycophants  and  the  ignorant,  "Race"  issue;— "Race"  ques- 
tion. 

The  favors  and  privileges  of  corporate  combinations,  the 
seizure  and  occupation  of  the  public  highways  and  streets 
for  tramway,  telephone,  telegraph,  express,  railroad  and 
electric  power  companies,  cannot  be  made  an  issue  in  politics; 
because  the  creation  of  an  independent  opposition  party  is 
practically  forbidden  by  the  oligarchy.  Every  newspaper, 
bank,  business  association,  trade-board,  and  all  industrial 
agencies  are  alarmed  and  silenced  by  the  factitious  cry  of 
inciting  race-disturbances. 

In  a  speech  in  April,  1906,  Representative  Moon  of  Tennessee 
urged  his  colleagues  to  stand  for  the  people  instead  of  the 
"rings"  that  control  the  South.  Referring  to  that  speech 
a  Chicago  periodical  says: 

"It  was  high  time  for  someone  to  speak  for  the  people  of  the  South, 
when  Representative  Moonf  of  Tennessee  did  so  last  week  in  Congress. 
He  appealed  to  his  associates  from  the  South  to  stand  for  the  Southern 
people  instead  of  the  rings  that  control  the  railways  of  the  South.  It  is 
not  generally  known,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  fact  which  Mr.  Moon  deserves 
credit  for  emphasizing,  that  much  of  what  is  called  Southern  opinion, 
and  much  of  what  is  called  Southern  representation,  are  nothing  but 
railroad  opinion  and  railroad  representation.  This  is  true  not  only  of 
the  Southern  delegations  in  Congress,  but  also  of  the  Southern  delegations 
in  Democratic  conventions,  and  of  the  newspapers  of  the  Southern  States. 
With  a  few  honorable  exceptions  they  are  all  mere  creatures  of  railroad 
rings." 

Knowing  that  the  rightful  exercise  of  United  States  au- 
thority by  virtue  of  the  Constitution  and  the  powers  of  Congress 

*  "Cure  for  the  failures  of  Democracy  is  more  Democracy." — Frederic  C.  Howe. 
fCong.  Rec..  p.  4879. 


58  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

would  put  an  end  to  the  discriminations  now  in  vogue,  as  well 
as  give  practical  support  to  such  anti-discrimination  cam- 
paigns as  the  intelligent  Southern  people  chose  to  conduct  in 
their  several  localities  and  thus  threaten  the  downfall  of 
leaders  now  imperiously  dominating  their  own  party,  the 
latter  hail  with  delight  any  minor  issue  that  will  apparently 
bring  the  United  States  Courts  and  officials  into  more  or  less 
collision  with  State  officials,  State  practices  or  State  laws. 

The  people  have  gradually  become  accustomed  to  the 
evasion  or  defiance  of  United  States  authority  respecting  the 
practical  disfranchisements  already  accomplished,  and  it 
would  be  useful  to  divert  attention  from  those  disfranchise- 
ments to  a  collision  between  State  and  Federal  jurisdictions 
on  some  popular  topic  foreign  to  personal  violations  of  civic 
rights.  In  this  way  the  people  will  get  used  to  the  pretentious 
and  unfounded  demagogism  of  "trumped  up"  collisions 
between  State  and  Federal  authority.  The  Southern  political 
leaders  are  amenable  to  the  caprices  of  popularity;  and  to  main- 
tain their  position  in  their  party  and  that  party's  popularity 
they  are  quite  willing  that  the  party  shall  indulge  in  any  anti- 
corporation  campaign  that  may  serve  as  a  ruse  and  at  the  same 
time  gratify  the  popular  heart,  more  particularly  if  by  so  doing 
attention  can  be  diverted  from  the  imperialism  at  elections, 
any  inquiry  into  which  by  impartial  judges  the  leaders  fear 
and  cordially  denounce. 

The  recent  anti-railroad  performances,  therefore,  of  high 
officials  and  partisan  conventions  in  Georgia,  North  Carolina, 
Virginia,  Alabama  and  other  States  where  these  conditions 
prevail  should  not  mislead  the  investigator  seeking  truth. 
When  the  populists  were  trying  to  assail  the  real  evils  and 
corruptions  emanating  from  corporate  power  and  the  multi- 
farious ramifications  of  the  plutocratic  oligarchy  in  the  South, 
they  received  no  encouragement  from  the  latter;  not  because 
there  were  not  many  Democrats  who  sympathized  with  their 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  59 

cause,  but  for  the  reason  that  the  Populists  aimed  at  organizing 
and  maintaining  an  independent  political  organization.  Such 
a  movement  as  that,  no  matter  how  meritorious  the  principles 
or  platform  upon  which  it  may  be  conducted,  threatens  the 
dismemberment  of  the  oligarchy  constituting  itself  as  the 
Democratic  party.  So  the  movement  is  always  suppressed 
and  its  adherents  and  leaders  are  persuaded  to  attain  their 
aims  solely  through  Democratic  sources. 

This  suppression  caused  the  independent  element,  in  the 
absence  of  an  organized  party  devoted  to  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, to  be  absorbed  by  the  party  in  power.  It  is  an  organized 
party  of  independent  and  honest  opposition  that  is  feared  by 
the  party  of  the  oligarchy.  All  such  elements  must  be  shorn 
of  power.  In  some  States  they  have  been  annihilated,  in 
others  absorbed. 

Hence,  circumstances  and  issues  of  any  character  that 
obscure  or  misrepresent  the  real  conditions  are  welcomed  by 
a  party  that  secures  and  maintains  its  grip  upon  the  State 
and  its  people  by  a  cultivated,  successful,  and  avowed  con- 
tinuance of  electoral  fraud. 

Meanwhile  the  people  are  to  become  more  and  more  accus- 
tomed to  disrespect  the  authorities  of  the  United  States  in  all 
matters  applicable  to  their  domestic  concerns,  except  as  such 
authority  furnishes  appropriations  and  their  equivalents. 

If,  through  the  Democratic  party  or  otherwise,  the  oligarchy 
now  in  control  of  Southern  affairs  should  ever  dominate  Con- 
gress, the  Executive  and  the  Courts,  as  far  as  the  true  interests 
of  the  nation  are  concerned,  it  were  better  that  the  Confederacy 
should  have  been  established,  and  the  life  and  treasure  wasted 
in  the  great  war  preserved  for  some  worthier  conflict! 

There  would  then  have  arisen  an  individual  independence 
among  the  white  men  in  the  States  composing  the  Confederacy, 
and  some  hope  of  an  independent  party  movement  to  unseat  an 
oligarchy  now  largely  despised  by  its  constituencies,  and  only 


60  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

kept  in  power  by  force  and  chicanery.  A  row  of  Custom-houses 
along  the  border  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande  would 
be  a  small  price  to  pay  for  an  interior  political  independence 
now  apparently  impossible.  There  would  be  occasion  and 
work  therein  for  an  independent  party.  The  American  spirit, 
and  not,  as  now,  the  spirit  of  caste,  would  control  it;  and 
sooner  or  later  there  would  be  attracted  into  the  ranks  of  such 
an  independent  party  the  best  thought,  charity,  benevolence,  in- 
tellectual accomplishment  and  statesmanship  that  a  new  South 
would  afford.  Indeed,  such  a  Confederacy  containing  an  inde- 
pendent party  would  be  more  elevating  not  only  to  the  States 
concerned,  but  also  to  the  people  of  the  North,  than  are  the 
intolerable  conditions  of  repression  that  underlie  the  social  and 
political  structure  of  society  in  the  South  to-day. 

If  individual  political  independence  and  an  opposition  party 
shall  ever  be  possible  in  those  communities  it  will  be  when  the 
worship  of  the  dollar  and  a  trailing  in  the  competing  columns 
of  commerce  and  trade  and  plutocracy  shall  not,  as  now,  efface 
individuality  of  opinion  and  dominate  party  men  and  party 
action. 


".  .  .  how  do  the  great  States  come  to  an  end?  By  their  own 
injustice." — Theodore  Parker. 

What  are  the  political  conditions  in  the  South  to-day? 
The  propagation  and  cultivation  of  actual  sectionalism  is 
manifested  in  the  agreement  of  all  the  representative  men  in 
certain  sections  of  the  South  upon  two  propositions,  viz.: 
(a)  the  exclusion  of  colored  people  from  participation  in  voting 
and  from  all  political  life;  and  (6)  the  insistence  that  States 
and  localities  shall  not  be  interfered  with  while  ordering  the 
the  affairs  of  the  colored  population  according  to  local  prejudice 
and  an  assumed  commercial  expediency. 

Public  life  is  not  possible  in  those  sections  to  a  statesman 
or  politician  who  runs  counter  to  these  two  propositions.  The 
first  proposition  implies  the  practical  nullification  of  the 
guarantees  of  the  United  States  Constitution;  but  that  is  not 
deemed  of  consequence  by  these  sectional  adherents  so  long  as 
there  is  no  exercise  of  authority  against  such  nullification,  nor 
any  great  demand  and  aroused  public  sentiment  calling  for  the 
exercise  of  that  authority,  and  no  Andrew  Jackson  to  destroy 
the  nullification  itself.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  practical  nullifi- 
cation extant  is  quite  adequate  to  meet  the  case,  because  this 
sectional  domination  is  established  and  made  superior  to  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  land. 

Besides,  in  regard  to  both  the  foregoing  propositions,  the 
national  guarantee  would  only  be  made  practical  through  the 
action  of  judges,  Federal  and  State,  depending  for  their  offices 
upon  the  favor  of  public  men  representative  of  the  sections 
where  they  hold  court.  These  judges,  in  very  few  instances, 


62  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

have  wavered  against  the  tendencies  of  their  localities.  Even 
were  it  otherwise,  inasmuch  as  the  underlying  questions  are 
fundamentally  political,  and  the  wrongs  claimed  merely  inci- 
dents in  the  development  of  political  life  of  the  State  in  which 
they  occur,  no  ulterior  achievement  towards  righting  alleged 
wrongs  of  this  character  can  be  expected  from  individual  litiga- 
tion or  from  judicial  performances.  Political  wrongs  are  not 
apt  to  be  righted  by  the  actions  of  courts.  Great  reforms  are 
never  accomplished  by  litigation.  Technical  evasions  of  con- 
stitutional obligations,  even  if  successfully  defended  in  the 
courts,  are  more  demoralizing  than  defiant  open  violations. 

In  all  matters  of  discrimination  on  account  of  race,  or  of 
poverty,  or,  it  may  be,  on  account  of  wealth,  the  general  senti- 
ment of  the  population  where  such  discrimination  occurs,  as 
evidenced  by  its  political  action,  will  sooner  or  later  assuredly 
dominate  all  concrete  authority. 

It  may  accomplish  its  results  honestly,  or  by  force,  or  by 
fraud;  but  in  a  genuine  Democracy  it  will  manifest  itself  in 
some  way  in  the  action  of  constables,  of  justices,  of  juries,  of 
sheriffs,  of  legislators  and  of  governors.  No  study  of  politics 
is  therefore  comprehensive  that  does  not  take  into  account 
the  general  sentiment  and  conduct  that  is  sufficiently  stable  to 
manifest  itself  in  the  performances  of  local  officials. 

A  generation  saturated  with  inbred  prejudices,  more  or  less 
cultivated  by  disingenious  leaders  and  practicing  discrimina- 
tion in  various  ways,  especially  political  ways,  against  colored 
people,  cannot  be  expected  to  square  their  actions  on  the  plane 
of  equal  rights.  At  any  rate,  the  public  man  in  the  Atlantic 
and  Gulf  States  who  pretends  so  to  do  will,  as  has  often  hap- 
pened, be  eliminated  from  public  life  there. 

While  this  statement  by  no  means  fully  describes  actual 
conditions,  it  denotes  indubitable  tendencies.  These  tendencies 
have  already  resulted  in  practical  nullification  of  the  Constitu- 
tional guarantees  against  discrimination  in  respect  to  the 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  63 

suffrage,  and  have  also  demonstrated  the  promotion  of  a  well- 
defined  policy  of  race  discrimination  in  all  matters  of  public 
relation.  This  is  historical  fact. 

As  against  this  condition  it  has  sometimes  been  urged  that 
the  liberal  thought  of  the  better  element  of  the  Southern  people, 
if  left  to  its  development,  will  manifest  itself  in  improved  con- 
ditions and  a  higher  standard  of  justice  and  political  morality.* 
Judged  by  the  past,  this  is  a  Utopian  dream;  judged  by  the 
present,  it  is  absolutely  impossible.  One  must  measure  the 
tendencies  and  results  of  political  action  by  the  expressions 
and  performances  of  political  leaders.  This  is  a  world-wide 
canon  in  politics. 

A  Democratic  Senator  from  the  North  declared  (Jan.  12, 
1907)  in  the  Senate  that  "there  is  rapidly  being  organized 
in  the  South  a  movement  to  demand  that  the  North  unite 
with  the  South  in  the  repeal  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment, 
and  the  practical  return  of  the  negroes  of  the  country  to  a 
condition  of  peonage."! 

Much  inane  philosophy  is  being  talked  by  Southern  fanatical 
negro  race-haters  about  inferior  races.  In  the  cycles  of  time 
races  that  are  inferior,  intellectually  morally  and  in  a  military 
sense,  to-day,  become  the  superiors  and  the  conquerors  to- 
morrow; sometimes  by  war,  sometimes  by  assimilation.  Em- 
pire after  empire  of  the  old  world  civilizations  reached  the  zenith 
and  then  fell  before  a  civilization  destined  to  supplant  it.  Macau- 
lay's  New  Zealander  on  the  ruins  of  London  is  no  fanciful  picture. 
No  nation,  any  more  than  an  individual,  should  arrogate  to 
itself  a  lasting  and  compelling  superiority.  "Oh,  why  should 
the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?"  as  Knox,  in  his  immortal  poem 
asks,  applies  to  nations  as  to  men.  In  the  sight  of  God  all 
men  are  equal,  irrespective  of  race  and  color.  But  the  deai 
good  Southern  leaders,  some  of  whom  in  their  bitterness  and 

*  The  nation's  Executive  apparently  indulges  in  this  phantasy,  as  also  the  Secretary 
of  War  in  his  speech  on  August  22,  1907,  at  Lexington,  Kentucky, 
t  Cong.  Rec.,  59th  Congress,  p.  1060. 


64  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

abhorrence  of  a  dark-skinned  race  question  the  wisdom  of  the 
Almighty,  speak  sneeringly  of  the  inferior  negro  race.  It  is 
inferior,*  and  the  dominant  white  race  should  therefore  all 
the  more,  if  not  for  that  very  reason,  be  up  and  doing  to  lend 
a  helping  hand  to  uplift  that  inferiority  toward  its  real  su- 
periority. That  would  be  right  and  proper  in  the  sight  of 
God  and  far  more  Christian,  chivalrous  and  characteristic  of 
a  superior  race  than  a  venomous  and  unreasoning  abuse. 

Political  leaders  have  always  shaped  and  conducted  the 
legislation  and  administration  of  public  affairs  in  the  Southern 
States.  Partisan  leaders  in  politics  before  the  war  in  some 
States  overcame  the  liberal  thought  of  their  opponents,  and 
in  some  cases  by  force  or  by  trickery  brought  the  unwilling 
people  of  a  State  into  the  columns  of  Secession.  In  some 
instances  the  leaders  did  not  dare  to  submit  the  State's  ordi- 
nance of  Secession  to  the  people  for  ratification.  Similarly 
to-day  political  leaders  holding  high  office  and  supported  by 
a  rigid  partisanship,  are  established  and  maintained  in  some 
States  by  force  and  trickery,  and  have  outlined  the  conduct 
to  be  followed  by  themselves  and  their  constituents;  all  of 
whose  conduct  is,  in  turn,  moulded  upon  the  lines  the  partisan 
leaders  themselves  lay  down.  Whatever  differences  of  opinion 
may  be  ostensibly  declared  on  other  topics,  there  is  no  differ- 
ence whatever  in  the  line  of  conduct  respecting  discrimination 
— except  as  to  the  expediency  of  an  unrestricted  avowal  of  it. 
Some  men  are  more  outspoken  in  public  than  others;  but  in 
ordinary  conversation  there  is  absolutely  no  disagreement  on 
this  score. 

When  the  refined  distinctions  that  are  built  upon  the  disin- 
genious  claims  of  State  rights  and  the  current  successful  Consti- 

*  "Honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise; 
Act  well  your  part,  there  all  the  honor  lies. 
Worth  makes  the  man,  and  want  of  it  the  fellow 
The  rest  is  all  but  leather  and  prunella." — Pope. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  65 

tutional  evasions  shall  have  been,  as  they  deserve  to  be — and 
surely  will  be — brushed  aside,  the  existence  of  a  noxious  section- 
alism will  be  exposed  by  many  cotemporaneous  illustrations. 
Take,  for  example,  the  Georgia  (1906)  State  election  and  the 
so-called  campaign  preceding  it,  a  campaign  not  between 
political  parties,  but  conducted  exclusively  within  the  lines  of 
the  one  party  by  factions  striving  to  control  it.  There  was  a 
strife  within  the  Democratic  party  for  the  gubernatorial  nomi- 
nation. In  that  struggle  the  factions  disagreed  about  methods, 
but  there  was  no  disagreement  as  to  the  results  to  be  accom- 
plished by  those  methods.  One  faction  declared  that  there 
was  no  need  to  change  the  Constitution  or  the  laws  for  the 
elimination  of  the  colored  race  from  political  life,  because  that 
is  already  an  accomplished  fact;  while  the  other  faction  de- 
clared that  it  would  be  better  to  settle  it  in  some  way,  as  other 
States  had  settled  it,  by  incorporating  something  in  the  State 
Constitution  that  would  make  the  present  system  of  discrimi- 
nation part  of  the  fundamental  law. 

The  Southern  States  are  seeking  to  regain  through  the  action 
of  the  oligarchy,  supported  by  corporate  agencies  of  all  kinds 
and  by  subtle  alliances  with  capitalists  ostensibly  antagonized, 
the  position  which  those  States  held  before  the  war. 

Prior  to  the  war,  the  South,  in  the  boasted  language  of  one 
of  its  elected  leaders  who  was  afterwards  made  vice-president 
of  the  Confederacy,  had  had  a  majority  of  the  presidents  of 
the  United  States,  "as  well  as  control  and  management  of 
those  from  the  North."  The  speaker  went  on  to  declare: 
"We  have  had  sixty  years  of  Southern  presidents  to  their 
twenty-four,  thus  controlling  the  executive  department.  So 
with  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  We  have  had  eighteen 
from  the  South,  and  but  eleven  from  the  North.  Although 
nearly  four-fifths  of  the  judicial  business  has  arisen  in  the  free 
States,  yet  the  majority  of  the  court  has  always  been  from 
the  South.  This  we  have  required,  so  as  to  guard  against  any 


66  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

interpretation  unfavorable  to  us.  ...  In  choosing  the 
presiding  officer  pro  tern  of  the  Senate  we  have  had  twenty- 
three,  they  twelve.  While  the  majority  of  the  representatives, 
from  their  greater  population,  have  always  been  from  the 
North,  yet  we  have  generally  secured  the  Speaker  because 
he,  to  a  great  extent,  shapes  and  controls  the  legislation  of 
the  country.  Nor  have  we  had  less  control  in  several  other 
departments  of  the  general  government.  Of  Attorney-Generals 
we  have  had  fourteen,  while  the  North  has  had  but  five.  Of 
foreign  ministers  we  have  had  eighty-six,  they  but  fifty-four. 
While  three-fourths  of  the  business  that  demands  diplomatic 
agents  abroad  is  clearly  from  the  free  States  because  of  their 
greater  commercial  interests,  we  have  nevertheless  had  the 
principal  embassies,  so  as  to  secure  the  world's  markets  for 
our  cotton,  tobacco  and  sugar  on  the  best  possible  terms. 
We  have  had  a  vast  majority  of  the  higher  offices  of  both 
Army  and  Navy,  while  the  larger  proportion  of  the  soldiers 
and  sailors  were  drawn  from  the  North ;  equally  so,  of  clerks, 
auditors  and  comptrollers  filling  executive  departments. 
The  records  show  for  the  last  fifty  years  that  of  the  three  thou- 
sand thus  employed  we  have  had  more  than  two-thirds,  while 
we  have  only  one-third  of  the  white  population  of  the  Republic. 
.  .  .  From  official  documents  we  learn  that  more  than 
three-fourths  of  the  revenue  collected  has  been  raised  from 
the  North.  .  .  .  The  expense  of  transportation  of  mails 
in  the  free  States  was  in  1860  a  little  over  thirteen  millions 
of  dollars,  while  the  income  was  nineteen  millions  of  dollars; 
but  in  the  slave  States  the  transportation  of  mail  was  four- 
teen million,  seven  hundred  and  sixteen  dollars,  and  the 
revenue  from  the  mail  only  eight  million,  two  hundred  and 
sixty-five  dollars,  leaving  a  deficit  of  six  millions,  seven  hundred 
and  fifteen  thousand,  seven  hundred  and  thirty-five  dollars  to 
be  applied  by  the  North  for  our  accommodation."  * 

*  Speech  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  before  the  Georgia  Secession  Convention. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  67 

Here  is  a  description,  from  an  unquestionable  authority, 
of  conditions  that  must  have  had  their  influence  upon  Southern 
political  leaders  when  they  realized  that,  as  a  result  of  the  elec- 
tions of  1860,  the  power  thus  described  was  about  to  pass  from 
them.  In  the  opinion  of  many  sagacious  men  of  that  period, 
the  prospective  loss  of  that  power  was  more  potential  in  the 
creation  by  political  leaders  of  the  organization  known  as  the 
"Confederate  States  of  America"  than  the  ostentatious  claim 
of  danger  to  slave  property  and  to  State  rights.  While  by  the 
growth  of  the  country  it  cannot  be  expected  that  the  relative 
power  of  the  old  slave  States  will  ever  be  comparatively  re- 
established, except  by  their  successful  alliance  with  factions 
in  the  Northern  States  specially  devoted  to  such  re-establish- 
ment, it  is  nevertheless  true  that  absolute  power  over  State 
action,  untrammeled  by  the  assaults  of  a  local  political  organi- 
zation, is  essential  to  Southern  State  leaders  for  their  success- 
ful relations  to  national  questions,  as  well  as  for  a  continuance 
of  the  advantages  derived  from  national  appropriations. 

When  the  representatives  of  eleven  States  are  united,  as 
well  by  the  ties  of  party  organization  as  by  a  uniform  purpose 
so  far  as  it  respects  each  State  and  each  representative,  not 
only  is  the  number  of  representatives  highly  important,  but 
the  fact  of  the  existence  of  such  a  partisanship,  based  as  it 
is  upon  an  alliance  for  the  practical  nullification  of  the  War 
Amendments  and  upon  a  discrimination  against  the  letter  and 
the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  itself,  becomes  a  matter  of  anxiety, 
if  not  of  absolute  danger,  in  all  matters  of  national  concern. 
It  is,  indeed,  a  sectionalism  that  constitutes  a  continual  menace 
to  the  national  interests.  The  individual  representatives  may 
be  honest;  but  as  long  as  they  and  their  constituents  insist 
that  there  shall  be  no  agitation  over  State  conditions  and  local 
practices  opposed  to  law  and  order,  anxiety  cannot  be  allayed. 

It  is  an  axiom  that  disregard  of  law  breeds  contempt  of  law; 
contempt  of  law  breeds  lawlessness;  and  lawlessness  is  anarchy! 


68  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Anarchy  may  be  promoted  as  well  by  partisan  tyranny  and 
the  suppression  of  Democracy  as  by  the  murder  of  a  ruler. 
If  those  who  rule  murder  those  who  are  ruled  it  may  justly 
be  expected  to  be  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  tables  shall 
be  turned  by  the  rebellion  and  wanton  crime  of  those  who 
are  ruled.  Offences  react  against  the  offender.  If  localities 
and  States,  or  even  a  combination  of  States,  offend  against 
fundamental  law,  either  in  letter  or  spirit,  it  would  seem  to  be 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  search  out  the  underlying  causes.  Whether 
some  of  those  causes  may  or  may  not  be  grounded  in  the  cam- 
paign of  discrimination,  political  and  otherwise,  now  entered 
upon  by  the  leaders  of  a  section  and  vigorously  prosecuted  for 
sectional  purposes,  is  a  national  question  that  should  receive 
more  regard  at  the  present  time  than  corresponding  causes  did 
when  Mr.  Stephens  made  his  notable  speech,  already  referred  to, 
before  the  Georgia  Secession  Convention.  There  was  no  such 
unlawful  discrimination  then  pursued  as  there  is  now.  Slavery 
was  a  fact  not  disturbed  in  any  of  the  States  by  national  action. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  opinions  of  individuals  as  to  the 
fundamental  immorality  of  slavery,  and  whatever  may  have 
been  the  sentiment  as  to  its  extension  into  free  territory,  there 
was  no  disturbance  threatened  by  the  national  government  of 
the  actual  discrimination  necessarily  attendant  upon  a  con- 
dition of  lawful  slavery  in  those  States.*  Notwithstanding  that 
situation,  the  political  leaders  of  that  time  successfully  persuaded 
and  led  their  people  to  an  organized  resistance  to  the  national 
power  which  they  saw  slipping  away  from  their  continued  control. 

*  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  (Dec.  22,  1860)  to  Mr.  Stephens  that  as  to  interference  with  the 
South  about  their  slaves,  there  was  no  cause  to  fear  a  Republican  administration.  He 
said:  "The  South  may  be  in  no  more  danger  in  this  respect  than  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Washington.  I  suppose,  however,  that  does  not  meet  the  case.  You  think  slavery 
is  right  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  we  think  it  is  wrong  and  ought  to  be  abolished. 
That  I  suppose  is  the  rub.  .  .  ." 

Likewise  to-day  the  people  of  the  North  think  the  War  Amendments  are  right  and 
ought  to  be  enforced.  The  Southern  politicians  pretend  to  think  they  are  wrong,  and 
ought  to  be  extinguished.  Hence  the  crisis  I 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  69 

But  in  some  instances  the  managers  of  the  Secession  cause 
dared  not  refer  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  back  to  the  people 
of  the  State  for  ratification.  Agitation  on  fundamental  prin- 
ciples was  deprecated  at  that  time.  Sagacious  men  even 
among  the  Southern  statesmen  argued  against  it  at  home, 
and  Northern  statesmen  and  politicians  were  almost  united 
on  the  same  lines.  Even  the  great  Georgia  statesman  ex- 
claimed, "What  right  has  the  North  assailed?  What  interest 
of  the  South  has  been  invaded?  What  justice  has  been  denied? 
Can  any  of  you  name  to-day  one  governmental  act  of  wrong 
deliberately  and  purposely  done  by  the  Government  at  Wash- 
ington, of  which  the  South  has  a  right  to  complain?  I  challenge 
an  answer.  On  the  other  hand.  ...  I  will  state  facts 
which  are  clear  and  undeniable  and  which  now  stand  in  the 
authentic  records  in  this  history  of  our  country.  When  we 
of  the  South  demanded  the  slave  trade,  did  they  not  yield  the 
right  for  twenty  years?  When  we  asked  three-fifths  representa- 
tion in  Congress  for  our  section,  was  it  not  granted?  When 
we  demanded  the  return  of  any  fugitive  from  justice  or  the 
recovery  of  those  persons  owing  labor  or  allegiance,  was  it 
not  incorporated  in  the  Constitution  and  again  ratified  and 
strengthened  in  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850?  When  we 
asked  that  more  territory  should  be  added  that  we  might 
spread  the  institution  of  slavery,  did  they  not  yield  to  our 
terms  in  giving  us  Louisiana,  Florida  and  Tennessee  .  .  .  ?" 
etc.,  etc.* 

To-day  the  white  South  wants  the  North  to  hold  "hands 
off"  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  which  the  South 
maintains  to  be  a  local  and  not  a  national  one,  demanding 
that  the  Southern  States  should  be  left  alone  to  deal  with 
what  are  styled  their  own  home  "problems,"  according  to 
their  own  sweet  will.  It  is  universally  assumed  in  the  South 

*  A.  H.  Stephens. 


70  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

that  everything  relating  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  negro 
is  a  local  affair,  not  to  be  meddled  with,  because  it  is  claimed 
not  to  concern  the  nation  at  large!  That  is  the  underlying 
assumption,  expressed  or  implied,  as  a  fundamental  principle 
of  political  action;  and  the  conditions  recently  in  this  respect, 
instead  of  having  been  improved,  have  retrograded  and  are 
worse  to-day  than  ever  before.  The  South  has  signally  failed 
to  carry  out,  even  in  an  initiatory  way,  any  part  of  the  pro- 
gramme that  the  solution  of  such  a  "problem"  would  call  for. 
It  has  persistently  ignored  fundamental  questions  and  sub- 
stituted a  "system"  foreign  to  American  institutions. 

President  Harrison,  in  his  Inaugural  Address  on  March  4, 
1889,  gave  utterance  to  words  of  warning  that  are  needed 
to-day  more  than  ever.  He  said:  "The  evil  example  of  per- 
mitting corporations  or  communities  to  nullify  the  laws  because 
they  cross  some  selfish  or  local  interest  or  prejudice,  is  full  of 
danger,  not  only  to  the  nation  at  large,  but  much  more  to  those 
who  use  this  pernicious  expedient  to  escape  their  just  obliga- 
tions or  to  obtain  an  unjust  advantage  over  others.  They 
will  presently  themselves  be  compelled  to  appeal  to  the  law 
for  protection.  Those  who  would  use  the  law  as  a  defence 
must  not  deny  the  use  of  it  to  others." 

What  is  happening  to-day  in  the  South  under  the  oligarchy? 

This  has  been  well  described  by  a  forceful  Southern  writer:  * 
"The  race  issue  in  national  campaigns  is  brought  into  play 
by  the  Southern  "Democracy"  for  purely  partisan  usage,  and 
this  usage  is  a  cowardly  sham  to  turn  the  voter  North  from 
clear  insight  into  the  real  suffrage  condition  South,  as  it  really 
and  vitally  affects  not  only  the  liberties  of  whites  South,  but 
also  the  suffrage  rights  of  whites  North.  .  .  ." 

"  In  a  State  election  where  Captain  Kolb,  an  ex-Confederate 
soldier,  was  an  independent  candidate,  the  'Democracy'  was 
'saved'  by  immensely  padded  returns  from  the  sixteen  Black 

*  J.  C.  Manning. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  71 

Belt  counties  in  Alabama  populated  largely  by  blacks,  and 
enormous  fictitious  majorities  from  these  counties  were  em- 
ployed to  overcome  and  to  annul  the  majorities  honestly 
polled  by  the  whites  in  the  forty-five  white  counties  of  the 
State — counties  populated  almost  exclusively  by  whites. 
Returns  were  recorded  for  the  'Democracy'  from  black  belt 
precincts  where  the  polls  were  not  in  reality  opened,  and 
where  the  formality  of  an  election  was  dispensed  with.  Upon 
the  day  of  the  'official'  count  the  majority  of  votes  for  Kolb 
were  scaled  down  in  the  white  counties,  where  the  '  Democracy ' 
controlled  the  returning  boards,  by  the  throwing  out  of  the 
vote  of  many  precincts  voting  Kolb  majorities;  and  this  was 
necessary  to  overcome  the  revolt  against  the  machine,  even 
though  the  black  belt  had  already  'done  its  duty.'  There 
is  not  an  informed  man  in  Alabama  who  will  not,  perhaps, 
confess  to  the  election  of  Kolb  in  1892  by  a  tremendous 
majority.  The  supporters  of  the  Kolb  ticket  were  mocked 
at  and  defied.  The  Bourbon  leaders  boastingly  asserted: 
'Yes,  we  counted  you  out  and  we  will  do  it  again,  if  necessary, 
and  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it? '  .  .  ." 

"No  wonder  in  a  State  (South  Carolina)  where  under  similar 
conditions  the  total  voting  population  was  (in  1902)  283,325, 
of  which  the  white  voting  population  was  130,374,  the  total 
vote  returned  for  all  candidates  for  Congress  in  its  seven  Con- 
gressional districts  was  only  32,185.  So  also  in  Mississippi, 
with  a  total  voting  population  of  349,177,  and  a  white  voting 
population  of  150,922,  the  votes  returned  for  all  Congressional 
candidates  in  the  State  were  only  10,858.  So  also  in  Alabama, 
with  a  total  voting  population  of  413,862,  and  a  white  voting 
population  of  223,294,  only  91,839  votes  were  returned  at  a 
State  election.  .  .  . 

"This  deplorable  condition  of  the  electorate  constitutes  a 
national  menace.  .  .  . 

"To  protest  now  against  the  methods  of  this  regime  is  to 


72  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

invite  a  torrent  of  wrathful  censure  and  to  turn  loose  the  flood- 
gates of  terrific  assault  from  prostituted  papers.  The  motive 
is  to  crush  out  and  to  annihilate  any  formidable  opposition 
of  zealous  leadership  that  rises  up  to  'a  source  of  annoyance 
to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  State!'  .  .  . 

"From  Mississippi,  where  the  negro  is  without  any  voice 
whatever  in  government,  most  is  heard  about  the  jeopardy  of 
'white  supremacy.'  .  .  . 

"In  the  South  candidates  for  Congress  who  oppose  the 
oligarchy  are  counted  out  and  denied  the  certificate  of  election 
and  forced,  if  seated,  to  inaugurate  an  expensive  contest  and 
frequently  the  taking  of  the  testimony  is  attendant  with  the 
risk  of  one's  life.  The  price  is  too  great.  The  experiences 
of  Hon.  William  F.  Aldrich,  of  the  Fourth  Alabama  district, 
the  facts  being  upon  records  of  Congress,  bear  out  this  conclusion. 
Three  times  elected,  three  times  counted  out,  three  times 
seated  upon  contests,  once  to  accommodate  his  opponent,  held 
up  at  the  point  of  drawn  weapons,  they  taking  this  occasion 
to  inflict  bodily  punishment  upon  him — these  are  not  at  all 
pleasant  enough  experiences  to  inspire  many  men  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  good  government  in  the  South.  Yet,  there  are 
those  who  advocate  'letting  the  South  alone,'  and  leaving 
to  the  oligarchists  of  the  South  'the  adjustment  of  these  local 
conditions!'  There  is  but  one  peaceful  recourse  for  rightful 
settlement  of  this  suffrage  situation  in  the  States  of  the  South. 
That  recourse  is  for  the  nation  to  protect  to  every  citizen  his 
national  rights  when  infringed  upon  by  the  powers  dominating 
the  State." 

"The  liberties  of  the  masses  South  are  crushed  beneath 
the  feet  of  these  tyrants,  whose  prating  hypocrisy  does  not 
voice  the  will  of  the  oppressed  of  this  section."* 

The  ability  to  control  in  all  respects  State  action,  local 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  73 

legislation,  and  the  preservation  of  local  conditions,  is  at  the 
foundation  of  united  sectional  action.  In  those  States  there 
is  not  a  politician  who  is  looking  forward  to  party  action  to 
preserve  the  existing  conditions  of  discrimination,  who  would 
have  the  audacity  to  raise  his  voice  against  those  conditions 
as  they  now  exist.  At  the  North  every  interest  that  seeks 
an  alliance,  commercial  or  political,  with  Southern  leaders, 
discountenances  any  agitation  for  the  disturbance  of  those 
conditions.  This  is  in  accordance  with  the  undisguised  pro- 
gramme of  statesmen  in  the  South,  where  Democracy  is  out- 
spoken. It  is  unfortunate  that  there  is  not  a  similar  exhibition 
of  candor  elsewhere. 

It  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  in  1860,  that  every  commercial 
interest  discouraged  an  agitation  along  lines  of  fundamental 
principle,  because  such  agitation  might  disturb  established 
business  channels.  It  is  likewise  regrettable  that  the  real 
sentiment  of  large  sections  of  our  country's  population  dis- 
approving of  the  existing  discriminations  remains  without  any 
organized  or  official  expression.  That  which  is  actually  out- 
spoken by  individuals  and  by  constituencies,  here  and  there, 
in  public  meetings  and  conventions,  receives  slight  encourage- 
ment from  men  in  public  office.  Sometimes,  indeed,  such 
utterances  are  directly  discountenanced.  At  any  rate,  ex- 
pressions in  high  quarters  have  been  construed,  both  South 
and  North,  as  an  actual  acquiescence  in  existing  conditions. 
This  is  especially  true  regarding  such  a  notable  speech  as  that 
of  Secretary  Taft  at  Greensboro',  North  Carolina,  on  July  9, 
1906. 

In  that  speech  he  showed  plainly  that  he  himself  did  not 
believe  in,  nor  did  the  present  Administration  intend  to  take 
action  upon,  the  suffrage  plank  in  the  platform  of  the  national 
Republican  party  in  1904.  He  demonstrated  that  he  was  not 
in  favor  of  any  action  to  undo  the  violation,  which  he  admits  is 
practised,  of  the  Fourteenth  and  the  Fifteenth  Amendments. 


74  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

His  characterization  of  the  colored  race  in  the  South  was  a 
"damning  with  faint  praise."  He  premised,  without  reason, 
that  the  educated  colored  men  who  will  be  allowed  to  vote 
by  their  "common  sense  and  judgment  and  position  in  the 
community  will  add  weight  to  the  vote  they  cast,  and  will 
secure  more  real  influence  for  the  benefit  of  their  race  than 
when  the  right  of  suffrage  of  the  negroes  was  wholly  unre- 
restricted."  [?] 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  educated  colored  men  are  the  very 
men  whose  votes  are  not  wanted  by  the  Southern  whites. 
The  registrars  can — and  do — exclude  whom  they  please,  even 
college  graduates,  men  who  have  been  educated  at  the  great 
universities  of  the  North!  What  the  speaker  called  a  man's 
"common  sense  and  judgment  and  position  in  the  community" 
does  not  count  in  balloting,  because  race  rivalry  and  prejudice 
exist  and  are  rampant.  It  is  by  a  numerical  vote  that  an 
election  can  be  turned,  not  by  the  intellectuality  or  possessions 
or  the  distinguished  individuality  of  the  voter. 

Mr.  Taft  represented  the  present  administration  when  he 
spoke  before  the  North  Carolinians. 

The  following  are  extracts  from  a  letter  written  shortly  after 
that  speech  and  which  appeared  in  a  periodical  published  in 
Boston:  ".  .  .  The  right  of  a  '  class  of  persons '  so  ignorant 
and  so  accustomed  to  oppression  as  to  be  a  species  of '  political  (?) 
children  not  having  the  mental  stature  of  manhood'  can  never 
be  secured  by  the  occasional  and  privileged  ballot  of  an  accom- 
plished colored  man,  or  by  the  occasional  and  improbable 
judgment  yet  to  be  wrung  from  an  unwilling  Court. 

"Courts  are  inadequate  to  remedy  political  wrongs. 

"I  would  cordially  discourage  law  suits  as  affording  redress 
for  wide-spread  conditions. 

"Men  who  connive  at  defrauding  colored  people's  suffrage- 
rights  easily  resort  to  depriving  white  people  of  their  votes. 

"That  is  what  is  done  when   necessary.     A   miscount  is 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  75 

robbery.  When  votes  are  a  prey  it  little  matters  to  the  oligarchy 
whether  they  are  stolen  from  white  or  black. 

"Neither  law  suits  nor  gingerbread  will  restore  a  suffrage 
in  fact  denied  or  abridged. 

"The  fortunate,  not,  unfortunate  (as  the  Secretary  opines) 
reconstruction  guarantees  imbedded  in  the  U.  S.  Constitution 
will  be  enforced  only  by  political  action.  That  political  action 
must  be  sought  for  through  the  adherents  of  the  Republican 
party,  and  not  from  its  enemies.  The  colored  people  owe  it 
to  themselves  to  give  that  party  no  peace  until  it  undertakes 
and  honestly  pursues  such  political  action  as  may  be  within 
its  power.  No  matter  what  may  be  said  by  officials,  by  candi- 
dates, or  by  prospective  judges,  the  fact  that  it  is  through 
political  action,  and  political  action  only,  that  the  colored 
people  can  progress  towards  enjoying  the  rights  the  Constitution 
intended  they  should  have,  justifies  the  colored  people  in 
adopting  the  Garrisonian  principle:  '  Agitate,  Agitate,  AGITATE!  ' 
Especially  is  this  to  be  done  when  the  deliverance  of  an 
assumed  friend,  ostentatiously  and  truly  announced  as  an 
official  spokesman  for  the  Chief  of  the  Nation,  and  presum- 
ably the  campaign  orator  for  his  party,  is  characterized,  as 
it  has  been  by  his  political  adversaries,  for  example  (N.  Y. 
Herald),  as  an  official  *  Message  of  acquiescence  in  the  exist- 
ing state  of  affairs.' 

"Unfortunately  this,  if  not  the  intent,  is  no  unjust  deduction 
from  the  speaker's  language. 

"If  not  so  intended,  proper  correction  by  the  orator  himself 
can  yet  be  made. 

"  But  doubtless  being  so  intended  the  colored  people  should 
arouse  their  friends,  look  to  their  allies,  appeal  to  the  fair 
judgment  of  their  countrymen,  and  advance  to  political  power 
their  courageous  and  loyal  friends,  and  not  their  enemies,  nor 
the  unreliable  traders  and  sycophants  of  their  own  race. 

"In  these  times,  as  well  as  before  the  War,  the  allies  of  the 


76  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

oligarchy  seek  to  divide  their  political  enemies  by  all  the 
subtle  arts  of  commerce,  benevolence,  literature,  patronage 
and  fraud.  The  Republican  party  is  just  now  suffering  from 
this  affliction,  and  will  indeed  be  fortunate  if  it  escapes  punish- 
ment for  its  neglect  of  traditional  obligations."  * 

That  the  Executive  favors  acquiescence  in  the  electoral 
conditions  at  the  South  will  be  apparent  to  anyone  who  shall 
turn  to  his  Lincoln  Day  speech  before  the  Republican  Club 
of  the  City  of  New  York  in  February,  1905.  As  that  day  was 
near  the  inauguration  of  an  administration  elected  upon  the 
Republican  platform  of  1904,  the  Republican  press  of  the 
country  was  naturally  chary  about  expressing  opinions  that 
might  not  preserve  the  harmony  of  the  party;  and  this  speech 
was  unfortunately  regarded  as  an  avoidance  of  what  other- 
wise some  might  consider  an  unwise  agitation. 

Whether  the  newly  elected  President  would  have  aided  or 
embarrassed  his  new  administration  by  a  discussion  of  the 
conditions  of  actual  discrimination,  so  far  as  they  affect 
the  interests  of  the  nation  at  large,  need  not  here  be  discussed. 
The  pertinent  consideration  is,  that  the  parties  political  and 
party  adversaries  have  exhibited  lines  of  agreement  against 
reformatory  propositions.  This  indeed  is  nothing  new  in 
the  philosophy  of  politics. 

The  consideration  and  discussion  of  fundamental  questions 
may  sometimes  be  suspended  by  political  conduct,  but  are 
seldom  inaugurated  by  those  in  political  stations.  If  the 
present  conditions  are  right  and  just  and  deserve  the  encourage- 
ment of  the  country  at  large,  we  may  be  sure  that  they  will  not 
be  disturbed.  But  if  fundamentally  they  are  based  on  human 
wrong,  manifest  injustice  and  an  aim  to  perpetuate  un-re- 
publican  conditions — conditions  not  in  harmony  with  a  demo- 
cratic form  of  government — it  may  be  unhesitatingly  foretold 
that  agitation  and  discussion  will  undoubtedly  arise.  It 

*  H.  E.  T. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  77 

has  indeed  already  arisen.  In  any  analysis,  therefore,  the 
investigator  will  arrive  at  the  question  of  right  or  wrong ;  and 
if  wrong,  how  far  the  wrongs  extend,  and  the  causes  and 
remedies,  if  any;  and  who  are  affected  by  the  wrongs.  Is  not 
the  nation  at  large  responsible  for  them?  Are  not  the  people 
of  the  whole  country  necessarily  concerned,  and  are  they  the 
victims  of  the  wrong-doing? 

The  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat  commented  on  that  speech 
thus : 

"Its  tone  is  friendly,  and  the  good  wishes  he  expresses  for 
the  South,  the  sympathy  for  it  in  the  difficult  problems  it  has 
to  solve,  and  his  strong  protest  against  any  interference  that 
would  tend  to  render  these  problems  more  difficult,  should 
be  and  will  be  appreciated  by  the  Southern  people.  If  he 
can  persuade  the  party  whose  Head  he  is  to  follow  the  line 
he  lays  down,  the  race  problem,  FREED  FROM  SECTIONAL  OR 
POLITICAL  COMPLICATIONS,  can  be  brought  to  a  satisfactory 
settlement  far  sooner  than  we  had  hoped  for  and  with  less 
friction." 

What  does  the  writer  mean  except  to  say  that  the  wrongs 
being  done  by  the  South  towards  the  disfranchised  colored 
race  are  right,  and  the  South  will  applaud  you. 

The  South  will  never  be  satisfied  unless  you  give  it  this 
laissez-faire  liberty,  because  that  is  necessary  to  the  continuance 
in  power  of  the  oligarchy  and  its  preponderance  in  all  things 
social  and  political  in  the  South.  In  that  speech  of  the  President 
his  utterances  anent  the  colored  race  were  of  the  "pat  and 
prick  type"  of  the  nursery  story,  praise  and  dispraise  being 
meted  out  in  about  equal  measure  and  proportion. 

This  attitude  had  its  expected  results.  It  gave  the  cue  of 
non-action  and  the  cue  was  followed. 

In  the  59th  Congress,  as  it  had  been  in  the  prior  Congress, 
the  belief  continued  on  the  part  of  the  recognized  representa- 
tives of  the  Southern  oligarchy  that  a  sympathetic,  if  not  a 


78  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

pliant,  ally  at  the  White  House  stood  ready  by  acts,  if  not  in 
words,  to  accede  to  their  sectional  behests;  and  this  belief  was 
apparently  a  powerful  incentive  to  line  up  support  for  mis- 
cellaneous Presidential  recommendations  and  for  policies 
improperly  claimed  to  be  of  Democratic  origin. 


VI 

"The  scientific  method  is  nothing  but  a  patient,  careful,  persistent 
pursuit  of  truth — that  is  all.  .  .  The  man  who  is  content  with  anything 
but  the  truth,  the  man  who  will  be  desirous  of  obtaining  anything  that 
does  not  square  with  the  verities  of  the  situation,  is  not  a  scientist;  he 
has  not  the  noble  ambition  of  the  scientist. 

"We  cannot,  as  human  beings,  dealing  with  the  affairs  and  interests 
of  human  beings,  have  things  done  with  exact  regard  to  scientific  form; 
but  what  citizens  want  more  than  anything  else  in  connection  with  their 
government  is  the  ascertainment  of  the  truth,  the  dealings  of  things  in  a 
true  and  honorable  way,  the  standing  for  the  truth  and  the  readiness  to 
account  to  the  people  according  to  the  truth." — Charles  E.  Hughes. 

In  his  "Reminiscences  of  a  Long  Life,"*  General  Carl  Schurz 
said  that  President  Buchanan  was  the  very  impersonification 
of  the  political  species  (referring  to  1859-60)  then  known  as  the 
"Northern  man  with  Southern  principles" — that  is,  a  Northern 
politician  always  ready  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  slave-holding 
interests  and  coquetting  with  the  South,  while  posing  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  North. 

This  description  is  unfortunately  not  inapplicable  to  the 
"political  species"  represented  by  the  White  House  incumbent 
to-day,  relied  upon  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  dominant  political 
oligarchy  of  the  old  slave  States.  It  is  because  the  political 
potency  of  the  latter  is  unified  along  fixed  lines,  that  its  influence 
and  cooperation,  individually  and  collectively,  is  assiduously 
solicited — and  sometimes  upon  liberal  terms — in  matters  of 
Congressional  legislation,  as  well  as  in  Democratic  Conventions. 

*  McClure's  Magazine,  March,  1907. 


80  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Probably  no  incentive  was  more  pregnant  with  support  (in 
the  Fifty-eighth  and  Fifty-ninth  Congresses)  of  Presidential 
recommendations  than  the  belief  that  a  sympathetic  Executive 
stood  ready  and  willing  to  accede  by  acts,  if  not  perhaps  in 
words,  to  the  sectional  behests  of  the  recognized  leaders  of  this 
oligarchy.  Subservient  as  such  representatives  have  hitherto 
shown  themselves  to  be  to  this  oligarchy,  they  were  ready, 
under  the  guise  of  non-partisanship  or  of  fealty  to  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  to  support  an  administration  (elected  by  the 
Republican  party),  and  thereby  conceal  this  subserviency  upon 
matters  of  State  and  local  concern,  and  yet  leave  with  the 
local  Bosses  at  the  South  that  home  power  to  which  they  have 
been  accustomed,  and  without  which  the  present  suppression 
of  political  independence  there  in  County,  State  or  City  could 
not  survive  a  single  fair  election. 

It  is  a  convenient  and  popular  theory  among  representative 
Southerners,  as  well  as  among  the  average  Southern  population, 
that  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage  among  colored  people  has 
no  relation  to  their  so-called  elevation,  or  the  cultivation  of  high 
ideals.  This  localism  is  against  all  philosophy.  How  can  there 
be  high  ideals  before  the  immense  non-voting  population  of 
Mississippi  and  Georgia?  It  was  well  said  recently  by  the 
New  York  Governor  (Hughes)  that  "the  other  problem  which 
is  being  presented  to  the  American  people  is  being  successfully 
solved  because  of  their  devotion  to  high  ideals.  .  .  .  There 
is  nothing  in  the  world  that  is  worth  having  which  is  not 
gained  through  the  respect  of  the  people  at  large.  There  is 
no  use  to  make  men  good  by  mere  law  .  .  .  every  organi- 
zation which  makes  men  desire  to  be  just  and  fair  and  square 
is  a  security  to  the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions.  .  .  ."  * 

At  the  base  of  all  progress  towards  the  attainment  of  high 
ideals  is  the  assurance  of  protection  at  every  stage  in  that 

*  Speech  of  Governor  Hughes  at  Troy,  before  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  reported  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  March  20,  1907. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  81 

progress.  In  the  absence  of  the  right  to  vote,  that  protection 
is  impossible.  It  cannot  be  secured  by  dependence  upon  others; 
much  less  by  dependence  upon  a  class  inimical  to  that  progress. 
The  suffrage  is  essentially  for  the  protection  of  classes  and  for 
the  protection  of  individuals. 
It  has  been  well  said  that 

"the  elective  franchise  in  a  Republican  or  Democratic  form  of  govern- 
ment is  based  upon  the  instinct  of  self-protection.  It  is  the  instrument 
by  which  it  executes  its  mandates. 

"Self-protection  in  government  embodies  protection  from  all  forms  of 
wrong  and  injustice  in  all  departments  of  life's  duties — life's  responsi- 
bilities— life's  activities. 

"A  just  and  righteous  government,  therefore,  secures  each  and  every 
individual  within  its  domains,  in  the  exercise  of  self-protection, — secures 
them  the  opportunities  for  the  free  and  full  development  of  all  mental 
attributes."  * 

Yet  organizations  among  colored  men  for  the  purpose  of 
enforcing  these  views  by  practical  application  through  voting 
and  the  establishment  of  civic  equality  are  discountenanced, 
where  not  disrupted  and  their  operations  disturbed,  if  at- 
tempted in  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  States! 

The  oligarchy  opposes. 

"In  no  free  government,  in  name,  has  a  distinct  class  so  entrenched 
its  hold  upon  governing  authority,  and  no  oligarchy  ever  came  into  exist- 
ence in,  as  alleged,  a  land  of  the  free  and  home  of  the  brave,  that  held 
tighter  grip  upon  the  weal  and  woe  of  the  whole  people  and  their  des- 
tinies. .  .  . 

"A  condition  by  which  whites  of  the  South  have  come  to  endure  a  yoke 
of  political  serfdom  and  of  political  outrage  is  beyond  the  power  of  language 
to  portray.  Popular  government  has  become  prostrate,  the  voice  of  the 
people  in  representative  government  has  been  silenced,  and  force,  fraud 
and  strategy  have  been  enthroned."  f 

It  is  one  thing  to  philosophize.  It  is  quite  another  thing 
for  one  charged  with  a  duty  to  practice  and  to  act  in  the  line 

*  Extract  from  an  address  by  Dr.  Margaret  Organ  at  the  Prohibition  Party  Mass- 
meeting  in  White  Plains,  New  York,  Nov.  1,  1906,  published  in  the  Public,  April  6,  1907. 
t  J.  C.  Manning. 


82  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

of  his  philosophy.  In  urging  upon  others  a  high  standard, 
our  esteemed  President  in  a  letter  declared: 

"...  There  must  be  that  training  on  the  moral  side 
which  means  that  production  in  the  average  citizen  of  a  high 
type  of  character — the  character  which  sturdily  insists  upon 
rights  and  no  less  whole-heartedly  and  in  fullest  fashion  recog- 
nizes that  the  performance  of  duty  to  others  stands  even  ahead 
of  the  insistence  upon  one's  own  rights."  * 

How  about  a  character  that  neglects  any  insistence  "upon 
rights"  the  observance  of  which  is  a  natural  part  of  and  em- 
bodies "the  performance  of  duty  to  others"?  No  encourage- 
ment whatever  has  been  given  by  this  speaker,  notwithstanding 
his  most  abundant  opportunities,  to  any  combined  effort  for 
insistence  upon  rights  expressly  guaranteed  as  War  results; 
and  avowedly  denied  in  extensive  localities,  as  well  by  evasion 
as  by  studied  effort. 

Again,  in  the  President's  official  speech  at  the  Jamestown 
exercises  (April  27,  1907),  he  boasted  that  there  were  "  equal 
opportunities  for  all."  Surely  this  is  an  idle  boast  as  long  as 
native  Americans,  no  matter  what  their  quality,  know  that  they 
can  never  achieve  civic  equality  and  equal  participation  with 
other  men  in  the  power  and  activities  of  government,  local  or 
general.  The  men  among  ten  million  colored  native  Americans 
are  made  aware  as  soon  as  they  are  able  to  learn  the  fact,  that 
they  are  a  class  and  are  the  subjects  of  discrimination  in  every 
respect.  Does  or  does  not  the  observation  of  the  speaker  apply 
to  them  when,  on  that  same  occasion,  he  declared,  "Other 
republics  have  fallen  because  the  citizens  gradually  grew  to 
consider  the  interests  of  a  class  before  the  interests  of  the 
whole.  .  .  .  Where  the  poor  plundered  the  rich  or  the 
rich  exploited  the  poor,  the  end  of  the  republic  was  at 
hand." 

*  From  a  letter  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  to  S.  H.  Church,  Pittsburgh.  Pa.,  April  11, 
1907,  upon  Dedication  Ceremonies  at  the  Carnegie  Institute. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  83 

If  the  speaker's  reasoning  be  correct,  the  end  of  Democracy 
in  certain  States  and  localities  has  already  arrived. 

But  so  marked  is  the  policy  of  laissez-faire  that  the  New  York 
Tribune,  in  deprecating  any  agitation  on  fundamental  lines, 
descended  into  the  groove  marked  out  by  Southern  demagogues, 
when  it  outlined  the  plea  of  the  colored  man  as  meaning  in 
the  South  "the  domination  of  many  communities  by  its  most 
ignorant  elements;  .  .  .  prosperity  and  character  are 
the  foundations  on  which  free  people  rise.  The  underdog 
is  always  put  upon;  .  .  .  the  poor  Irish  of  our  early  history 
were  kicked  about  till  they  worked  themselves  up  to  be  property 
owners  with  a  stake  in  the  community."  Yes;  but  meanwhile 
they  were  recognized  as  individual  units,  owning  or  about  to 
own  votes;  and  this  fact  gave  them  a  protection  and  a  stand- 
ing which  could  not  be  disregarded.  This  is  not  a  parallel 
case,  although  in  the  same  article  the  writer  goes  on  to  say: 
"It  is  the  same  with  the  negroes,  allowance  being  made  for 
the  exaggeration  of  race  prejudice,  of  difference  in  color  and 
the  bitterness  growing  out  of  the  condition  of  their  enfranchise- 
ment. No  man  whatever  his  color,  who  is  a  good  citizen,  a 
landowner  with  money  to  pay  his  way  and  to  contribute  to  the 
common  welfare,  will  in  the  long  run  be  oppressed."  The 
answer  is  that  in  a  republican  form  of  government  he  will 
always  be  oppressed  unless  given  the  power  of  a  political  unit. 
O  shades  of  Horace  Greeley!  For  his  great  paper  to  dis- 
courage a  protest  against  wrong  by  declaring  as  it  does: 
"An  inch  of  progress  is  worth  a  yard  of  protest."  Are  those 
who  bring  such  protests  to  the  calm  consideration  of  the 
American  people  taking  the  risk  of  diverting  the  most  thought- 
ful of  the  colored  people  from  the  path  of  discipline  and  in- 
dustrial progress?  That  is  precisely  the  aim  of  this  Tribune 
editorial,  arguing  against  a  wholesome  agitation. 

"The  protection  of  Americans  in  America"  may  sound 
strange  to  many  ears,  but  it  has  become  a  necessity  to  whites 


84  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

as  well  as  blacks  in  the  South  owing  to  the  suffrage  conditions 
controlled  and  manipulated  by  the  oligarchy  in  power,  allied 
with  Northern  capital.  The  so-called  "negro  problem"  is 
always  being  put  forward,  whereas  the  question  of  a  "square 
deal"  in  government  in  the  South  is  not  a  "negro  problem" 
at  all.  It  is  only  made  so  by  the  Democratic  leaders  who 
have  usurped  the  governing  prerogatives  and  trampled  on  the 
people's  rights. 

To  quote  again  from  the  President: 

"States'  rights  should  be  preserved  when  they  mean  the  people's  rights, 
but  not  when  they  mean  the  people's  wrongs;  not,  for  instance,  when  they 
are  invoked  to  prevent  the  abolition  of  child  labor,  or  to  break  the  force 
of  the  laws  which  prohibit  the  importation  of  contract  labor  to  this  coun- 
try; in  short,  not  when  they  stand  for  wrong  or  oppression  of  any  kind 
or  for  national  weakness  or  impotence  at  home  or  abroad." 

There  is  not,  nor  has  there  been  for  many  years,  real  Republi- 
can government  except  in  idle  form  in  many  of  the  Southern 
States.  The  disfranchised  whites  and  the  re-enslaved  blacks 
in  Alabama,  for  example,  are  politically  manacled  and  fettered 
as  helplessly  as  though  they  were  in  a  condition  of  actual  serf- 
dom. With  235,000  whites  in  that  State  and  180,000  blacks  of 
voting  age,  only  90,000  in  all  actually  voted.  At  a  recent  election, 
out  of  300,000  entitled  to  vote,  only  60,000  voted!  For  this 
condition  of  the  electorate  the  Bourbon  oligarchy  is  directly 
responsible.  It  is  not,  in  the  words  quoted  above,  "national 
weakness  or  impotence  at  home,"  but  it  is  inviting  revolution 
at  home  for  the  nation  to  remain  silent  before  such  a  condition. 
A  mockery  of  the  people's  rights  like  this  and,  by  political 
subterfuge  and  chicanery,  a  submerging  like  this  of  the  rights 
of  thousands  of  whites,  as  well  as  an  extinguishing  of  the 
citizen  rights  of  all  the  blacks,  cannot  much  longer  be  sus- 
tained. It  is  an  ever  present  menace  to  the  Republic. 

Recently,  again,  the  Executive,  in  accepting  membership  in 
the  Christian  Endeavor  Patriots'  League,  wrote: 


85 

"  I  believe  that  they  can  do  much  that  is  of  the  very  greatest  value  to 
the  cause  of  good  citizenship;  for  in  the  last  analysis  the  fundamental 
requisite  of  good  citizenship  from  the  standpoint  of  the  country  is  that  a 
man  should  have  the  very  qualities  which  make  him  of  real  value  to  the 
home,  in  the  church,  in  all  the  higher  relationships  of  life." 

President  Harrison  in  his  Inaugural  of  March  4,  1899,  said: 
"As  a  citizen  may  not  elect  what  laws  he  will  obey,  neither 
may  an  Executive  elect  what  he  will  enforce.     The  duty  to 
obey  and  to  execute  embraces  the  Constitution  in  its  entirety." 
How  about  the  enforcement  of  the  War  Amendments,  the 
Reduction  of  Representation  in  the  South  and  the  enfranchising 
of  thousands  of  citizens  of  the  type  that  would  be  likely  to  be 
made  by  that  Patriots'  League  above  referred  to? 


VII 

"Justice  is  the  end  of  government.  It  is  the  end  of  civil  Society.  It 
has  been  and  ever  will  be  pursued,  until  it  be  obtained,  or  until  liberty 
be  lost  in  the  pursuit." — James  Madison  in  the  Federalist. 

Republican  clubs  and  organizations  have  been,  and  still  are, 
urging  Congressional  action  on  the  suffrage  conditions  in  the 
South.  The  Union  League  Club  in  December,  1903,  followed 
the  lead  of  the  Republican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  in 
June  of  that  year.  The  movement  thus  started  was  continued 
in  more  than  a  score  of  States  where  at  party  conventions 
resolutions  were  adopted  demanding  the  enforcement  of  the 
Constitution.* 

But  the  aim  of  the  Executive  being  apparently  to  win  the 
affection  and  good-will  of  the  South,  Southern  members  of 
Congress  have  displayed  more  or  less  assurance  that  questions 
involving  the  franchise  would  not  be  brought  to  the  front. 

One  Southern  editor  went  so  far  as  to  refer  to  the  proposal 
to  cut  down  the  representation  in  the  South,  in  the  following 
language: 

"I  do  not  believe  it  ever  will  be  done.  The  Southern  people  are  for 
the  most  part  indifferent  about  the  matter,  although  many  would  wel- 
come it.  But  it  will  not  be  done.  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  against  it,  as  are  many 
other  Northern  people." 

And  yet  the  President  came  into  office,  when  elected  in  his 
own  right  in  1904,  upon  a  party  platform  pledge  promising  a 
Congressional  enquiry  into  Southern  suffrage  conditions,  with 

*  The  action  referred  to  in  the  text  is  one  of  the  most  significant  illustrations  of  the 
underlying  sentiment  of  the  times,  and  the  results  therefore  have  been  collated,  and 
appear  in  extenso  in  Appendix  B  to  these  pages.  See  also  Appendix  A. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  87 

a  view  to  ascertaining  just  what  they  were  and  to  remedying 
the  defects,  and  declaring  that  a  reduction  in  Southern  repre- 
sentation should  be  made  such  as  the  facts  justified,  under  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitution. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  President  has  been  a  potential 
factor  in  causing  that  suffrage  plank  to  be  ignored  and  prac- 
tically shelved. 

While  referring  to  this  plank  and  the  disregard  of  the  obliga- 
tion it  imposed  upon  the  Party  representatives,  it  is  part  of 
the  history  of  the  times  that  the  Republican  press  was  not  a 
unit  in  adhering  to  this  ignoring  policy.*  It  was  appreciated 
that  the  Session  of  Congress  immediately  ensuing  the  election 
of  1904  was  the  last  and  the  short  session  of  the  Fifty-eighth 
Congress,  continuing  only  three  months  from  the  first  Monday 
in  December,  1904;  and  in  that  short  session  a  multitude  of 
appropriation  bills  and  miscellaneous  legislation  awaited  con- 
sideration and  action.  Still,  if  the  leaders  had  been  so  disposed 
there  might  have  been  some  indication  of  action  along  the  lines 
of  the  national  Republican  platform.  Obviously  the  leaders 
were  not  so  disposed,  and,  except  in  the  forceful  speech  of 
Representative  Crumpacker,  no  serious  attention  was  given  to 
the  bill  that  was  introduced  and  to  the  special  efforts  outside 
of  Congress  that  were  made  to  carry  out  the  platform.  Another 
consideration  that  had  its  weight  was  that  the  Fifty-eighth  Con- 
gress was  not  elected  upon  that  platform,  but  was  elected  two 
years  before  it  was  adopted;  and  that  the  Congress  that  was 
elected  upon  that  platform,  and  that  was  to  convene  in  December, 
1905,  was  the  proper  body  to  enact  measures  obligated  by  that 
national  platform.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  circumstance  beyond 
dispute  that  before  December,  1905,  the  Southern  men  in 
Congress,  in  some  mysterious  way,  became  satisfied  that  the 
leaders  of  the  Republican  party  were  for  a  time,  at  least,  dis- 
posed to  ignore  that  plank  in  the  Republican  platform.  Visitors 

*  See  Appendix  A. 


88  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

to  the  White  House  were  abundantly  quoted  in  this  strain, 
and  the  Southern  press  amused  itself  by  declaring  that  the 
Republican  plank  was  meaningless  and  was  adopted  only  as 
a  bait  for  colored  voters  in  doubtful  States.  Indeed,  some 
influential  Northern  journals  took  the  same  view.  While  the 
question  was  thus  being  lulled  to  sleep  some  independent  news- 
papers, both  of  Republican  and  Democratic  proclivities,  were 
outspoken  in  declaring,  "both  locally  and  nationally,  morally 
as  well  as  politically,  the  evils  of  the  existing  situation  are  too 
patent  to  be  ignored.  They  must  be  discussed  fearlessly  and 
the  remedy  sought  with  all  diligence." 

Another  paper  declared  that  the  Congress  which  was  chosen 
on  the  1904  Chicago  platform,  was  pledged  to  remedial  suffrage 
action,  and  must  "face  the  music"  and  demonstrate  "whether 
the  promise  of  a  square  deal  for  the  country  at  the  ballot  box 
was  no  more  than  a  campaign  dodge." 

It  was  suggested  to  the  President  while  preparing  his  Annual 
Message,  that  he  might  at  least  invite  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  certain  States  suffrage  has  been  practically  abridged 
in  some  way  beyond  the  limitations  specified  in  Amendments 
Fourteen  and  Fifteen  of  the  Constitution.  In  relation  to  the 
States  where  in  the  judgment  of  Congress  such  conditions 
exist — and  that  they  do  exist  in  some  instances  seems  to  be  a 
circumstance  beyond  dispute — obedience  to  the  mandate  of  the 
Constitution  would  appear  to  call  for  appropriate  legislation 
towards  reducing  the  representation  of  such  offending  States  in 
Congress  and  in  the  Electoral  College  on  the  basis  of  the  pro- 
portion which  the  excluded  male  citizens  of  these  States  over 
twenty-one  years  of  age  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male 
citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age.  The  President  was 
urged  to  say: 

"While  the  lawful  regulation  of  the  suffrage  by  the  States 
has  always  been  jealously  guarded,  limitations  upon  the  re- 
strictions of  the  suffrage  as  declared  by  the  Constitution  of  the 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  89 

United  States  are  paramount  and  constitute  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land,  and  are  to  be  obeyed  by  practical  observance,  any 
local  law,  usage  or  State  constitution  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. What  cannot  lawfully  be  done  directly  cannot 
lawfully  be  done  by  indirection. 

"That  in  some  States,  as  exhibited  by  their  published  election 
returns,  less  than  one-half,  and  in  one  instance  less  than  one- 
eighth  of  the  white  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
and  substantially  all  of  the  colored  citizens  abstained  from 
voting,  evidences  a  condition  of  the  electorate  dangerous  to 
democratic  institutions. 

"The  Constitution  confides  to  the  Congress  the  duty  of 
enacting  such  legislation  as  the  conditions  in  these  respects 
shall  be  found  to  warrant." 

The  President,  nominated  by  the  National  Republican  Party 
and  elected  upon  the  National  Republican  platform  adopted 
at  Chicago  in  June,  1904,  failed  to  present  in  his  Message  any 
of  these  suggestions,  or  indeed  any  suggestions  whatsoever, 
arising  out  of  that  plank  or  the  conditions  that  gave  rise  to  it. 

That  the  heart  of  the  Republican  party  is  true  and  loyal  to 
Republican  traditions  and  principles  is  evidenced  by  the  action 
of  its  representative  conventions  in  the  States  already  referred 
to,  all  harmoniously  urging  such  action  by  Congress  as  the 
conditions  called  for — such  action  as  is  summed  up  in  the 
short  five  lines  in  the  national  Republican  platform  of  1904, 
which  says: 

"We  favor  such  Congressional  action  as  shall  determine  whether  by 
special  discriminations  the  elective  franchise  in  any  State  has  been  uncon- 
stitutionally limited;  and  if  such  is  the  case,  we  demand  that  representa- 
tion in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral  College  shall  be  proportionately  reduced 
as  directed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 

That  this  declaration  had  not  been  lost  sight  of  by  the 
general  sentiment  of  the  party  is  evident  from  the  resolutions 


90  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

adopted  at  Philadelphia  at  the  Convention  of  the  National 
League  of  Republican  Clubs  in  June,  1906,  at  the  celebration 
of  the  Jubilee  of  the  Republican  Party. 

"We  reiterate  the  demand  of  our  last  National  Platform  that  our  Re- 
publican majority  in  Congress  should  courageously  carry  out  the  principles 
and  pledges  of  the  party  and  enact  such  legislation  as  will  make  all  the 
Amendments  to  the  United  States  Constitution  absolutely  and  finally 
effective.  We  are  opposed  to  that  inequality  which  permits  one-twelfth 
of  the  voters  of  the  country  to  wield  one-quarter  of  the  national  legisla- 
tive power. 

"The  suppression  and  denial  of  suffrage  demands  the  reduction  of  the 
power  so  usurped,  and  the  denial  of  suffrage  should  never  be  rewarded 
with  political  premiums.  The  Democracy  of  at  least  eleven  States  should 
be  deprived  of  its  unfair  preponderance  of  power,  and  the  full  measure  of 
political  rights  secured  to  every  qualified  citizen,  white  or  black,  who  is 
capable  and  willing  to  assert  his  political  manhood.  The  political  party 
that  profits  by  the  suppression  of  the  ballot  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  the 
making  and  administration  of  the  nation's  laws." 

The  New  York  State  Convention  at  Saratoga,  held  September 
25,  1906,  shortly  after  the  Atlanta  riots,  declared  itself  in 
this  form: 

"Realizing  the  national  dangers  arising  from  the  alarming  growth  of 
mob  barbarities  engendered  by  race  hatred,  we  demand  the  prompt  and 
adequate  punishment  of  mob  instigators  and  leaders;  and  we  insist  upon 
the  just  and  equal  protection  of  the  civil  and  political  rights  of  all  citizens 
without  regard  to  race,  creed  or  color;  and  we  sympathize  with  all  the 
innocent  victims  of  such  violence,  whether  at  home  or  abroad." 

The  foregoing  by  unanimous  consent  was  adopted  imme- 
diately on  being  read,  without  the  usual  reference  to  any  Com- 
mittee. When  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  the  next  day 
reported  the  platform  for  the  Convention  this  was  article 
fourteen  in  the  platform,  which  contained  another  resolution 
passed,  number  thirteen,  as  follows : 

"We  are  opposed  to  that  inequality  that  permits  one-twelfth  of  the 
voters  in  the  United  States  to  hold  one-quarter  of  the  legislative  power, 


91 

through  the  suppression  of  the  right  of  franchise;  and  we  favor  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  which  will  reduce  in  just  proportion  the  representation  in 
Congress  and  the  Electoral  College  wherever  the  ballot  is  suppressed." 

In  accordance  with  the  plank  in  the  Republican  National 
platform  of  1904,  there  was  introduced  at  the  session  of  Congress 
then  next  ensuing  (December,  1904),  the  first  bill  to  reduce 
Southern  representation.  This  bill  provided  for  a  reduction 
of  nineteen  representatives  in  Congress,  and  specified  the  reduc- 
tion for  each  of  the  States  designated.  This  reduction  was 
based  exclusively  upon  the  figures  of  the  Census  of  1900,  some 
of  which  had  not  become  available  when  the  Apportionment 
Act  of  1901  was  passed,  which  Act  it  was  proposed  to  amend 
by  this  bill  introduced  for  that  purpose.  The  basis  of  such 
an  amending  bill  was  the  indubitable  fact  that  at  least  the 
colored  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  who  were  illiterate  were 
practically  excluded  from  the  suffrage.  Calculated  upon  the 
Census  returns  and  pursuing  the  usual  methods  of  figuring 
the  Congressional  apportionment,  the  reduction  on  this  basis 
amounted  only  to  an  aggregate  of  nineteen  representatives. 
Had  it  been  figured  upon  the  basis  of  exclusion  from  suffrage 
of  all  illiterates,  white  and  black,  the  reduction  would  have 
been  much  greater,  as  will  appear  by  an  inspection  of  the  bill 
that  was  introduced  in  the  following  Congress.  It  was  deemed 
best,  however,  by  those  in  charge  of  the  measure  to  propose 
it  in  the  first  instance  upon  the  most  conservative  lines  possible, 
in  the  hope  that  thereby  such  a  course  might  prove  acceptable 
to  all  parties,  and  possibly  be  enacted  without  opposition. 
The  bill  was  introduced  into  the  Senate  by  Senator  Platt,  of 
New  York,  and  into  the  House  by  Representative  James  S. 
Sherman,  of  New  York.  The  bill  was  not  received  in  the  spirit 
anticipated  and  hoped  for,  and  its  proponents  were  either 
abused  or  derided.  The  financial  and  educational  interests  in 
the  South  were  especially  antagonistic,  and  exhibited  their 
temper  partly  in  the  press  and  partly  in  personal  commumca- 


92  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

tions,  as  well  as  through  pretentious  discussions  in  educational 
circles  and  high-class  allied  publications.  Here,  by  the  way, 
was  another  marked  illustration  of  the  determined  purpose 
in  Southern  leadership  to  divert  and  to  question,  if  not  to 
resist,  the  legitimate  exercise  of  United  States  authority. 

Other  legislative  business  that  was  urgent  at  that  session 
of  Congress  precluded  the  serious  consideration  of  the  measure 
by  the  Fifty-eighth  Congress,  which  expired  on  March  4,  1905. 

When  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  convened  in  December, 
1905,  a  new  Reduction  Bill  framed  upon  a  more  just  basis 
was  introduced.  This  bill  proposed  to  reduce  the  representation 
by  an  aggregate  of  thirty-five  Southern  representatives  from 
the  States  designated.  This  reduction  was  also  figured  from 
the  Census  returns  of  1900,  and  likewise  upon  the  assumption 
that  illiterate  male  citizens  of  voting  age,  whether  whites  or 
blacks,  were  being  excluded  from  the  suffrage.  The  bill  was 
introduced  by  Representative  William  S.  Bennet,  of  New  York, 
and  was  followed  shortly  afterwards  by  another  one  for  the 
same  purpose  and  reaching  substantially  the  same  result. 
The  latter  bill  was  introduced  by  Representative  J.  Warren 
Keifer,  of  Ohio.  The  text  and  purpose  of  the  two  measures 
corresponded  so  harmoniously  that  for  practical  purposes  they 
may  be  considered  as  substantially  the  same.  Neither  measure, 
however,  received  any  serious  attention,  and  their  proponents 
were  given  no  opportunity  to  bring  them  to  a  vote  before  the 
House.  General  Keifer's  bill  formed  the  subject  of  an  able 
and  comprehensive  speech  which  he  took  occasion  to  make 
in  its  behalf.  This  veteran  member,  an  ex-speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  was  accorded  the  honor  of  the  floor 
to  make  this  speech.  No  heed,  however,  was  given  to  it,  able 
though  it  was.  The  measure  was  regarded  as  a  perfunctory 
display  of  party  fealty,  in  part  occasioned  by  the  unusual 
majority  by  which  General  Keifer  had  been  elected  after  a 
spirited  canvass  in  his  Congressional  district,  in  which  the 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  93 

questions  represented  by  the  bill  had  been  made  special 
features. 

Representative  E.  D.  Crumpacker,  of  Indiana,  on  February 
24,  1905,  had  also  made  a  powerful  speech  in  support  of  the 
Republican  plank. 

It  is  not  the  object  of  these  pages  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  the  details  of  any  of  these  three  bills,  nor  of  the  form  by  or 
in  which  reduction  of  representation  should  be  accomplished, 
or  of  the  legal  technicalities  adversely  suggested  concerning 
them.  For  this  branch  of  discussion  of  the  general  topic, 
reference  may  be  had  to  the  Brief  laid  before  the  Fifty-ninth 
Congress,  a  copy  of  which  will  be  found  in  Appendix  C  to 
this  volume. 

The  short  session  of  the  Fifty-eighth  Congress  had  come 
to  an  end,  with  no  other  action  in  this  respect  than  the  intro- 
duction, and  speech  by  Mr.  Crumpacker  in  behalf  of,  the  Platt- 
Sherman  bill  above  mentioned. 

In  the  first  and  long  session  of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress, 
the  Bennet  and  Keifer  bills  that  were  then  introduced  were 
silently  put  to  sleep  by  the  party  leaders,  with  the  apparent 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  representatives  that 
no  action  was  to  be  taken  upon  these  bills.  The  Southern 
representatives,  as  already  stated,  studiously  ignored  them, 
having  no  desire  to  enter  upon  a  discussion  of  their  merits, 
and  regarding  their  introduction  as  a  perfunctory  performance 
of  party  duty.  There  was  no  action  taken  in  the  last  session 
of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress. 

When  it  became  apparent  that  Congress  hesitated  to  act 
upon  these  bills,  public  agitation  was  again  renewed.  There 
were  some  meagre  press  discussions  regarding  the  subject, 
and  also  public  meetings  were  held  in  various  parts  of  the 
country.  One  of  the  earliest  and  most  notable  of  these  gather- 
ings was  a  mass  meeting  at  the  Academy  of  Music  at  Phila- 
delphia on  March  1, 1906,  which  urged  the  majority  in  Congress 


94  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

to  take  appropriate  action  at  that  session.  Since  the  meeting 
at  Philadelphia,  associations  and  committees  have  been  formed 
in  different  centres,  and  have  been  engaged  in  directing  more 
general  attention  to  the  conditions  described  in  these  pages. 
The  remarks  of  the  chairman  *  at  the  Philadelphia  meeting 
are  immediately  pertinent  here.  He  said,  in  part: 

"Ten  Southern  States  send  88  members  to  the  House  of 
Representatives.  They  report  1,132,888  votes  in  the  Presi- 
dential election  of  1904. 

"New  York,  with  nearly  half  a  million  more  votes,  enjoys 
only  37  votes  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 

"Pennsylvania  cast,  in  1904,  1,105,238  votes  for  Congressmen, 
and  for  it  gets  only  32  seats  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 

"Nine  coast  States  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande, 
having  81  seats  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  cast  1,016,467 
votes  for  President  in  1904.  Ohio  cast  1,004,393,  about  same 
number.  Yet,  instead  of  81  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, Ohio  has  only  21. 

"  Georgia  cast  about  40,847  votes  at  the  Congressional  election 
(1902)  and  gets  11  Congressmen,  while  Delaware  cast  41,872, 
about  the  same  number,  and  gets  one  Congressman. 

"It  takes  nine  votes  in  Indiana  to  reach  the  equivalent  of 
one  vote  in  South  Carolina. 

"Less  than  one-twelfth  of  the  total  vote  in  all  the  States 
is  cast  in  the  ten  Southern  States;  yet  they  furnish  nearly 
one-quarter  of  all  the  votes  in  the  House  of  Representatives — 
88  out  of  386. 

"As  the  ratio  of  representation  is  throughout  the  Union 
based  on  population,  this  inequality  of  result  indicates  the 
practical  disfranchisement  and  abstinence  from  the  polls  of 
large  classes  of  voters.  Whites  who  do  not  participate  in 
politics,  except  by  training  with  the  dominant  party,  and 
even  many  of  them,  cease  to  take  an  interest  in  voting;  and 

*  H.  E.  Tremain. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  95 

the  colored  voters  are  by  divers  and  devious  ways  practically 
disfranchised.  The  notorious  political  discrimination  against 
the  colored  man  exhibits  deplorable  conditions  that  are  fatal 
to  the  progress  of  a  genuine  democracy — conditions  that  are 
fruitful  for  the  growth  of  a  genuine  oligarchy. 

"A  dispute  almost  up  to  the  point  of  a  personal  collision 
has  been  progressing  between  two  competing  Democrats  in 
Georgia.  One  urges  a  revised  constitution  for  the  State  in 
order  the  more  effectually  to  disfranchise  the  colored  man. 
The  other  says  he  is  in  favor  of  negro  disfranchisement,  but 
declares  that  no  revision  is  needed  because  the  negro  is  already 
effectually  and  permanently  disfranchised.  So  both  Clark 
Howell  and  Hoke  Smith,  in  their  contest  to  control  their  own 
white  primaries,  help  testify  before  the  country  that  the  United 
States  Constitution  does  not  'cut  any  ice'  in  Georgia  politics! 
Nor  need  it,  while  its  politicians  can  seat  five  extra  Georgia 
Representatives  to  represent  the  disfranchised  colored  people. 

"Yet  there  is  nothing  on  the  face  of  the  Georgia  statute 
books  to  prove  the  notorious  fact  that  the  colored  voters  are 
practically  excluded.  Let  Congress  make  the  representation 
only  six  Congressmen  from  Georgia,  as  proposed  in  the  Bennet 
Bill,  instead  of  eleven  as  at  present,  and  Georgia  white  men 
will  soon  learn  the  road  to  impartial  suffrage.  If  they  do 
not,  Congress  can  pass  another  act  that  will  show  them  the 
way,  and  how  to  travel  it. 

"American  citizenship  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being 
in  the  ballot.  Without  the  ballot,  the  individual  citizen 
in  a  republic  is  abject  and  powerless  to  protect  or  to  defend 
his  life,  liberty  or  property.  He  may  not  sometimes  value 
his  vote  enough  to  use  it;  but  divest  him  of  it  and  he  falls 
from  American  manhood  to  political  slavehood. 

"Shall  there  exist  only  a  single  party  in  the  ten  Southern 
States?  Out  of  their  88  Representatives  now  sitting  to  make 
our  laws,  87  represent  districts  where  there  was  either  no  ex- 


96  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

pressed  Republican  opposition  whatever,  or  only  a  nomina* 
opposition  to  their  candidacy  and  what  it  stood  for.  Republican 
votes  were  so  few  as  to  indicate  the  absence  of  any  effort 
whatever  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  party,  not  even  for  the 
seats  that  in  many  districts  on  a  fair  vote  would  really  belong 
to  them.  There  were  no  Republican  candidates  at  all  in  thirty 
of  these  87  districts.  There  was  not,  and  could  not  have  been, 
in  the  canvass  a  discussion  before  the  voters  of  the  principles 
and  policies  that  mark  the  line  of  division  between  the  two 
great  national  parties.  Why?  Because  a  vitalized  Republican 
organization  cannot  do  business  in  all  those  States.  Could  you 
and  I  reside  there  and  summon  our  neighbors  for  political 
campaigns  on  the  lines  we  are  accustomed  to  in  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania?  When  our  capital  had  been  absorbed  by 
the  community  we  would  be  advised  to  remove! 

"This  is  not  a  local  question.  When  only  a  single  political 
party  is  vitalized  throughout  a  State,  laws  may  be  broken 
with  impunity  and  no  one  called  to  account  for  it.  Disregard 
of  law  breeds  contempt  of  law.  Irksome  laws  thus  incite 
anarchy  and  disorder. 

"The  existence  and  activity  of  only  a  single  political  party 
creates  and  sustains  AN  OLIGARCHY. 

"The  oligarchy  now  in  control  of  political  life  in  the  Southern 
system  finds  powerful  allies,  if  not  masters,  in  the  great  com- 
binations of  capital  that  revel  in  its  favors.  There  is  nothing 
democratic  in  the  Southern  Democracy — at  home. 

"PLUTOCRACY  in  its  most  powerful  and  offensive  phases 
absorbs  the  life  and  energies  of  every  political  action  in  those 
States.  It  is  all  partisanship,  and  partisanship  that  revolves 
around  the  question  of  what  is  most  expedient  for  the  oligarchy. 
The  power  of  the  oligarchy  subsists  on  deception. 

"At  the  slightest  symptom  of  revolt,  before  an  independent 
party  can  be  developed  into  any  vitalized  organization,  the 
cry  is  raised  and  re-echoed  by  the  sycophants  and  the  ignorant — 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  97 

'Race'  issue — 'Race'  question;  and  the  new  party  is  shattered 
with  fear  and  despair,  even  if  composed  exclusively  of  white  men. 

"The  favors  and  privileges  of  corporate  combinations,  the 
seizure  and  occupation  of  the  public  highways  and  streets 
for  tramway,  telephone,  telegraph,  express,  railroad  or  electric 
power  companies,  whether  against  law  or  under  the  forms  of 
law,  cannot  be  made  issues  in  party  politics — because  an 
independent  opposition  party  is  forbidden  or  is  at  Once  ex- 
tinguished by  the  oligarchy.  Newspapers,  banks,  business 
establishments  of  all  kinds,  Boards  of  Trade  and  all  local 
industrial  agencies  are  alarmed  and  silenced  by  the  false  cry 
of  inciting  race  disturbances. 

"Give  the  individual  voter,  white  or  black,  the  honest  ballot, 
with  its  associated  right  to  appeal  to  his  fellow-voters  for 
combined  action  upon  any  lawful  platform,  and  the  political 
atmosphere  of  State  and  County  will  become  salubrious. 

"A  reduction  of  representation  enacted  by  the  Fifty-ninth 
Congress  will  cause  an  immediate  re-alignment  of  Congressional 
Districts  in  the  ten  States,  and  furnish  citizens  who  are  opposed 
to  the  oligarchy  a  motive  for  joining  a  party  of  progress.  It 
will  afford  these  States  a  profitable  reason  to  discontinue  dis- 
crimination. It  will  create  an  anti-discrimination  party.  It 
will  call  into  activity  a  now  suppressed  Republican  constituency 
to  struggle  on  its  own  account  for  the  rights  nominally  guar- 
anteed by  the  United  States  Constitution  but  now  disregarded 
amid  threats  of  wilful  and  permanent  disobedience.  It  will 
restore  faith  in  Republican  traditions  and  assurances.  It  will 
at  least  stamp  with  disapprobation  the  extensive  usages  in 
defiance  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  freemen.  It  will  faintly 
reduce  the  ascendency  and  power  of  the  ruling  oligarchy  that 
holds  in  subjugation  the  industries  and  the  population  of  at 
least  ten  beautiful  States.  It  will  give  new  courage  to  the 
aspirations  of  a  downtrodden  race,  and  uplift  the  colored  man 
into  that  genuine  citizenship  which  is  his  constitutional  heritage." 


VIII 

"  If  that  government  be  not  careful  to  keep  within  its  own  proper  sphere 
and  prudent  to  square  its  policy  by  rules  of  national  welfare,  sectional 
lines  must  and  will  be  known." — Woodrow  Wilson,  Congressional  Govern- 
ment, Ch.  VI. 

"And  by  the  worth  and  honor  of  himself,     .     .     . 
To  beg  enfranchisement  immediate  on  his  knees." 

— King  Richard  II,  Act  III,  sc.  3. 

1.  A  faithful  analysis  of  the  situation  reverts  to  the  national 
Republican  platform  of  1904,  what  it  is  for,  what  it  signifies, 
and  the  necessity  for  its  enforcement.  If  it  has  no  merit,  if 
it  has  not  the  sanction  of  justice  and  right,  it  will  fall  to  the 
ground.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  grounded  on  truth  and  justice 
and  right,  the  light  that  shines  from  it  may  be  obscured  or 
ignored  for  a  time,  and  even  for  three  years,  but  not  indefinitely. 
It  may  or  may  not  again  be  made  an  issue  in  party  politics; 
but  the  conditions  that  caused  its  adoption  still  continuing 
without  amelioration  and  even  becoming  more  pronounced  than 
ever  before,  and  furthermore,  the  remedy,  if  any,  not  yet  having 
been  outlined  by  definite  political  measures,  the  necessity  is 
accentuated  for  a  consideration  of  fundamental  principles. 
Thus  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  refer  to  some  of  the  considera- 
tions that  were  put  forward  during  the  Presidential  campaign  of 
1904  in  support  of  the  plank  on  reduction  of  representation. 
In  one  of  the  documents  *  extensively  circulated  at  that  time, 
it  was  argued  that: 

There  is  no  "race  question"  involved  in  the  determina- 

.*  "The  Representation  Plank  in  the  National  Platform, "by  H.  E.  Tremam. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  99 

tion  by  the  law-making  power  of  the  United  States  of  a  political 
fact  that,  under  the  Constitution,  calls  for  a  legislative  enact- 
ment reducing  representation  in  accordance  with  that  fact. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  simple  declaration  touching  the 
scarecrow  of  "social  equality."  There  is  no  appeal  to  the 
rights  of  labor  or  of  race.  It  is  only  saying,  in  a  specific  form, 
that  we  favor  action  that  shall  determine  how  far  the  Constitu- 
tion has  been  trespassed  upon,  and  that  its  particular  provisions 
shall  be  enforced.  It  is  like  adopting  a  resolution  that  we  ap- 
prove of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and  that  we 
favor  the  enforcement  of  its  directions  to  the  law-making 
power. 

In  this  form  are  Republican  adversaries  challenged  to  object 
that  the  party  has  adopted  the  United  States  Constitution  as 
a  political  asset,  and  proposes  its  enforcement  by  political 
action;  and  that,  too,  by  the  political  action  of  the  law-making 
power  of  the  whole  country;  instead  of  depending  upon  the 
peculiar  views  of  some  special,  and  it  may  be  partisan,  court 
that  may  chance  to  handle  a  made-up  case.  It  is  as  idle  to 
imagine  that  an  electoral  representation  grossly  unfair  can  be 
remedied,  or  saved,  by  the  legerdemain  of  lawsuits,  as  it  was 
for  the  contestants  of  fifty  years  ago  to  guess  that  a  Dred  Scott 
case  could  establish,  or  defeat,  freedom  in  the  Territories.  A 
political  question  does  not  belong  to  the  Courts. 

So  the  law-making  power  of  the  nation,  the  platform  declares, 
should  determine  for  itself  where,  and  to  what  extent,  if  at 
all,  there  exists  in  fact  a  Constitution-violation  in  the  respect 
mentioned;  and  then  should  itself  apply  the  penalty  "as  directed 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 

Because  a  penalty  is  imposed  for  larceny  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  judge  delivering  the  sentence  approves  of  the  larceny. 
He  acts  because  it  is  his  duty.  So,  it  is  declared  by  the 
Republican  plank,  Congress  should  act.  Who  is  objecting? 
Are  there  offenders?  Perhaps  the  objection  comes  from  their 


100  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

friends.  Possibly  offences  have  been,  or  should  be,  or  are  always 
to  be,  condoned.  Why  this  "hue  and  cry"  against  the  simple 
propositions? 

The  St.  Louis  Democratic  Convention  furnishes  some  an- 
swers. Its  platform  declares: 

"The  race  question  (?)  has  brought  countless  woes  to  this  country. 
.  .  .  To  revive  (?)  the  dead  and  hateful  race  and  sectional  animosities 
in  any  part  of  our  common  country  means  confusion,  distraction  of  business, 
and  the  reopening  of  wounds  now  happily  healed.  .  .  .  We  therefore 
deprecate  and  condemn  the  Bourbon-like,  selfish  and  narrow  spirit  of  the 
recent  Republican  convention  at  Chicago,  which  sought  to  kindle  anew 
the  embers  of  racial  and  sectional  strife;  and  we  appeal  from  it  to  the  sober 
common  sense  and  patriotic  spirit  of  the  American  people." 

This  declaration  was  in  line  with  the  speech  of  the  Tem- 
porary Chairman,  who,  after  quoting  from  the  Republican 
plank,  said  its  real  object  was  "to  reduce  Southern  representa- 
tion"; and  then  he  added:  "If  the  Republican  party  were 
sincere  in  its  proposition  to  reduce  Southern  representation 
on  the  ground  of  disfranchisement  or  pretended  unconstitu- 
tional limitation  itself,  it  would  accompany  that  proposition 
with  another,  to  wit,  the  proposition  to  repeal  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  " !  !  !  * 

Why?  Unless  it  be  that  its  violation  should  be  condoned. 
Truth  is  invulnerable.  Could  there  be  a  more  persuasive 
confession  that  the  violation  exists;  and  that  the  remedy  is 
either  to  condone  the  offence,  or  else  to  change  the  Constitution? 

The  alternative  is  thus  presented  as  an  ultimatum.  Mean- 
while, it  is  audaciously  insisted  that  the  Constitutional  penalty 
be  not  imposed.  The  Republican  platform,  on  the  other  hand, 
says:  Impose  the  penalty;  reduce  the  representation  "  as  directed 
by  the  Constitution."  The  propositions  to  repeal  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  to  condone  its  violation,  are  distinctly  separate  ques- 
tions, quite  apart  from  the  present  issue. 

*  A  Democrat  has  proposed  a  resolution  in  the  House  of  Representatives  for  this  purpose. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  101 

Until  such  questions  shall  be  encountered  there  can  be  no 
"race  issue,"  no  "negro  question."  There  exists  only  the 
WHITE  MAN'S  QUESTION,  for  the  North  and  West:  Shall  less 
than  5,000  votes  in  South  Carolina,  or  1,500  votes  in  Mississippi, 
remain  the  electoral  equivalent  of  more  than  35,000  votes  in 
Ohio  or  New  York?  Shall  it  take  six  votes  in  New  York  to 
equal  the  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral 
College  enjoyed  by  a  single  voter  from  South  Carolina?  There 
is  no  "race  question"  about  that! 

In  1902  "in  Georgia  40,847  votes  elected  eleven  Congress- 
men." In  New  York  that  number  of  voters  could  not  elect 
more  than  one  Representative.  "In  Mississippi  18,108  voters 
elected  eight  Congressmen";  while  in  New  York  that  number 
of  voters  would  not  suffice  for  a  single  member.  In  Tennessee 
152,081  voters  elected  ten  Congressmen;  while  so  many  voters 
in  New  York  would  not  secure  more  than  four  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  In  Arkansas  39,423  voters  elected 
seven  Congressmen;  while  so  many  voters  again  in  New  York 
would  secure  only  a  single  member.  In  these  four  instances, 
taken  at  random,  the  votes  and  voices  of  thirty-six  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  are  thus  reckoned  the  equiva- 
lent of  seven  Congressmen  from  New  York ! 

However  exalted  may  be  the  individual  Congressman  from 
New  York  in  the  estimation  of  the  latter's  constituency,  it  is 
not  comfortable  to  realize  that  the  same  numerical  constituency 
in  another  latitude  furnishes  five  times  as  many  votes  in  Con- 
gress, with  a  proportionate  increase  of  power  in  the  election  of 
a  President. 

In  Mississippi  59,103  votes  were  cast  for  Presidential  electors 
in  1900;  in  a  contested  election  for  Secretary  of  State  in  1901 
five  candidates  (all  Democrats)  polled  the  whole  vote  of  only 
32,757;  and  in  the  Congressional  election  of  1902  only  18,058 
votes  were  cast  for  Congressmen.  Yet  Mississippi  gets  eight 
representatives  and  ten  electoral  votes,  where  for  that  many 


102  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

votes  New  York,  or  Minnesota,  or  Michigan,  gets  only  one 
representative. 

In  Connecticut  the  total  vote  for  Presidential  electors  in 
1900  was  179,210,  and  in  the  Congressional  election  of  1902 
159,358  votes  were  cast  for  Congressmen;  and  Connecticut  gets 
but  four  representatives. 

Thus,  in  round  figures,  for  less  than  160,000  votes,  Connecticut 
has  only  four  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  six 
votes  in  the  Electoral  College;  while  Mississippi,  with  less  than 
60,000  votes,  keeps  eight  members  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives and  ten  votes  in  the  Electoral  College. 

To  submit  to  such  unfair  inequality  is  to  acquiesce  in  a  most 
objectionable  domination  exclusively  "sectional"  in  its  char- 
acter. To  defend  it  is  a  species  of  the  most  pronounced 
"sectionalism."  While  to  object  to  it,  through  the  Chicago 
Resolution,  is,  in  the  reported  language  of  a  Representative 
from  Tennessee,  "a  revival  of  the  worst  days  of  the  'bloody 
shirt/  as  an  assault  on  Southern  manhood  (?),  and,  for  that 
matter,  upon  American  decency  and  intelligence  everywhere." 

The  Montgomery  Advertiser  says:  "Rather  than  be  subject 
to  the  control,  or  the  dominant  influence  even,  of  the  negro, 
these  Southern  States  could  well  afford  to  surrender  not  only 
a  part,  but  all  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral 
College.  .  .  .  There  is  absolutely  no  way  whatever  to 
determine  how  many  men,  white  and  black,  are  disfranchised 
by  our  laws  (a  confession  that  some  are  disfranchised).  .  .  ." 
Yet  in  Alabama,in  November,  1902,  with  a  citizenship  of  413,862 
persons  of  voting  age,  there  was  a  total  vote  only  of  91,490 
out  of  about  181,000  registered  voters.  Thus  232,862  persons 
of  voting  age  were  omitted  from  the  ballot;  and  there  were  not 
3,000  registered  colored  voters.  But  in  the  State  by  the  Census 
of  1900  (Special  Bulletin,  July,  1904)  there  were  14,110  colored 
citizens  owning  farms,  not  including  tenantry  of  various  sorts; 
over  1,000  colored  male  teachers,  besides  colored  merchants, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  103 

bankers,  doctors,  lawyers,  editors,  ministers  and  well  informed 
colored  persons,  not  less  than  5,000.  "We  are  not  registering 
negroes  to-day,"  replied  the  Registration  Officer  to  the  male 
principal  of  a  colored  school.  It  is  easy  enough  for  Congress 
to  determine  how  many  in  Alabama  "are  disfranchised."  So 
is  it  in  respect  to  other  States. 

The  New  Orleans  Democrat  appeals  to  Northern  Democrats 
that  the  South  would  be  "reduced  one-third  in  electoral  votes," 
and  so  "it  would  take  a  political  tidal  wave  to  restore  the  Demo- 
crats to  office."  Here  is  thus  exhibited  the  real  and  only  ob- 
jection either  South  or  North  to  the  meritorious  reduction, 
which  otherwise  would  not  be  seriously  opposed  in  the  South; 
because,  with  the  reduction  effected,  they  could  appeal  to  the 
nation  upon  the  merits  of  the  confessed  disfranchisement, 
and  so  possibly  establish  the  latter  permanently,  and  upon  an 
amended  Constitutional  basis.  The  cupidity  of  partisanship 
interferes  with  this  course  already  outlined  by  sagacious 
Southern  leaders. 

So,  between  confession  and  threats,  there  is  nothing  left  for 
argument  against  the  fairness  and  stability  of  the  assailed 
Republican  plank. 

Another  expression  quoted  from  the  South  declares:  "The 
best  fight  possible  must  be  made  against  the  scheme,  but  its 
defeat  failing,  the  representation  must  go;  .  .  .  but  no 
sacrifice  of  present  suffrage  conditions  will  be  made  to  retain 
representation."  For  any  "attempt  to  dragoon  the  South 
again  would  result  in  the  total  loss  of  the  investments  made 
in  this  section  by  Northern  capital!" 

An  amiable  romance  writer  of  sectional  fiction,  emerging 
from  the  fields  of  fancy  into  the  apparently  less  familiar  realm 
of  politics,  freely  concedes  that  the  object  of  his  section  is 
"frankly  to  disfranchise  a  large  element  among  that  (the  colored) 
race,  while  the  corresponding  element  among  the  whites  is  left 
the  ballot."  Whereupon  the  novelist  naively  explains  that  the 


104  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"disfranchisement  of  the  main  body  of  the  negro  race  in  the 
Southern  States  was  a  measure  of  high  necessity";  because  it 
was  for  the  "permanent  welfare  of  both  races,V  and  because 
those  (colored)  people  were  of  a  special  class  to  "be  legislated 
for";  and  besides,  as  he  generously  and  menacingly  adds,  to 
enforce  the  Constitutional  penalty  for  the  existing  discriminations 
would  be  to  sweep  away  the  $5,500,000  annually  contributed 
by  the  whites  for  the  education  of  the  negro!  Though  exactly 
what  that  has  to  do  with  the  true  representation  in  the  Electoral 
College  is  by  no  means  clear. 

This  much,  however,  is  clear,  namely,  that  there  exists  a 
discrimination,  and  that  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  is  not  now 
observed  in  practice.  In  fact,  in  some  districts  it  is  intentionally 
and  circumspectly  nullified;  and,  among  public  men  from  the 
South,  its  abrogation  is  generally  advocated  and  hoped  for. 

Upon  the  merits,  or  demerits,  of  such  a  repeal,  or  nullifica- 
tion, there  is  at  present  no  issue.  No  question  of  that  sort  is 
before  the  country.  But,  upon  the  application  of  the  Constitu- 
tional penalty  of  reduced  representation,  where  the  prohibited 
discrimination  exists,  the  two  political  parties  are  squarely  at 
issue. 

Nor  is  the  issue  about  the  existence  of  the  fact;  because, 
however  it  may  be  clouded  by  specious  statements,  the  fact 
of  a  practical  discrimination  is  usually  conceded.  It  is  always 
conceded  in  private  conversation;  and  is  generally  openly 
avowed  by  persons  hailing  from  the  offending  localities. 

Every  Southern  statesman  pleads  for  a  species  of  "local 
option"  as  the  wisest  method  of  purging  the  diseased  localities; 
while  every  Northern  politician  in  political  alliance  with  him 
obediently  sings  the  time-worn  refrain  "race  question,"  "sec- 
tionalism," "leave  us  alone";  praying  not  to  "penalize"  the 
South  by  equalizing  with  the  other  States  its  proportionate 
electoral  power;  whereas  the  refrain  ought  to  be,  "Do  not 
penalize  six  voters  of  the  North  by  requiring  only  one  Southern 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  105 

voter  to  offset  the  whole  six  on  all  matters  of  national 
concern." 

The  attitude  of  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  its  spokesmen  and 
adherents,  is  one  of  acquiescence  in  the  prohibited  discrimina- 
tion, one  of  confession  of  its  existence,  and  a  far  cry  to  condone 
the  offence  or  to  scare  away  its  obvious  consequences  prescribed 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

To  one  who  believes  in  the  Republican  party  it  is  against 
the  interest  of  the  whole  country  that  the  partisan  Democracy 
should  enjoy  a  representative  vote  in  Congress  and  in  the 
Electoral  College  that  is  grossly  disproportionate  to  the  con- 
stituency that  furnishes  the  undue  preponderance.  That 
preponderance,  figured  before  the  Civil  War  at  three-fifths  of 
the  slaves,  has  now  grown  in  many  States  to  five-fifths  of  the 
entire  colored  population.  One  result  is,  for  instance,  that  it 
takes  about  one  million  and  a  quarter  of  Illinois  or  Ohio  folks 
to  balance  the  electoral  power  of  half  a  million  white  population 
of  South  Carolina; — there  being  in  the  latter  State  about  700,000 
of  colored  and  500,000  of  white  population.  .  .  . 

At  least  one  hundred  and  twelve  electoral  votes  (and  more 
if  the  border  States  be  counted)  are  assured  to  the  Democracy 
from  the  solid  South  in  every  Presidential  election  "  by  methods 
abhorrent  to  fair  dealing."  These  the  Republicans  must  offset 
before  the  chances  are  balanced. 

In  the  election  of  1900  the  five  States  of  Alabama,  Georgia, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina,  with  forty-two 
Congressmen,  cast  460,120  votes;  while  the  five  States  of  Minne- 
sota, Wisconsin,  California,  Kansas  and  Maryland,  with  forty- 
two  Congressmen,  cast  1,681,265  votes!  In  New  York  the 
highest  vote  for  Congressman  in  1902  was  53,274,  and  the 
average  per  district  37,324.*  The  average  per  district  in  South 
Carolina  was  4,584!  The  Temporary  Chairman  of  the  St. 
Louis  Convention  held  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Representa- 

*  N.  Y.  figures  from  N.  Y.  Legislative  Manual,  1904. 


106  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

tives  upon  a  total  vote  in  his  district  of  1,433!  In  the  district 
of  Speaker  Cannon,  the  Chairman  of  the  Republican  Conven- 
tion, there  were  polled  at  his  election  39,361  votes. 

If  the  broad-minded  Southern  statesmen,  conceding  as  they 
do  the  practical  annihilation  of  the  colored  vote,  are  really 
satisfied  to  discuss  its  permanent  exclusion  on  the  merits,  with 
a  view  to  amend  the  United  States  Constitution,  they  will 
candidly  acquiesce  in  an  equitable  reduced  representation  as 
directed  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  and  help  to  arrange 
it,  before  proceeding  to  convince  the  nation,  if  they  can,  that 
the  Fifteenth  Amendment  should  be  repealed.  The  real 
obstacle  is  only  that  the  Northern  Democracy  will  not  will- 
ingly relinquish  the  partisan  advantage  of  the  solid  electoral 
votes  of  the  South,  however  willing  the  latter  may  be  to  forego 
representation  in  consideration  of  the  main  issue,  which  they 
imagine  to  be  exclusion  of  the  colored  vote. 

First  reduce  the  representation.  Then  proceed  to  the 
issue  of  reversing  the  determinations  of  the  last  generation 
that  are  now  alleged  to  be  unwise. 

In  another  pamphlet,*  entitled  "Parker's  Question  An- 
swered," referring  to  a  speech  by  the  candidate  of  the  Demo- 
cratic National  Convention,  in  which  that  candidate  asked: 

"Shall  the  wrongdoer  be  brought  to  bay  by  the  people  or 
must  justice  wait  upon  political  oligarchy?" 

— the  following  answer  was  made : 

"Political" Oligarchy!"  (1)  What  is  it?  (2)  Where  is  it? 
(3)  Does  it  dominate  the  Democratic  party? 

What  is  it?  Consult  your  Century  Dictionary,  and  there  read 
the  distinction  between  a  "  democracy  "  and  an  "  oligarchy." 
In  a  democracy  political  rights  are  enjoyed  by  all  who  possess 
civil  rights;  while  in  an  "  oligarchy  "  political  rights  are  con- 
fined to  a  part  only  of  those  who  possess  civil  rights. 

*  Same  author. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  107 

Investigate  facts  and  their  significance.  Take  States  ex- 
clusively Democratic. 

Begin  with  the  State  of  the  chosen  leader  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  Summon  the  record 
of  Mississippi. 

Mississippi  is  not  instanced  because  a  majority  of  the  voters 
in  that  State  are  colored  voters  who  do  not  vote.  Leave  that 
out.  But  because  of  the  rigid  Democracy  of  the  white  voters 
there.  No  stress  is  laid  on  the  facts  that  out  of  348,466  voters 
only  18,058  votes  were  cast  at  the  last  election  for  Congress- 
men, and  that  not  one-sixth  of  the  voters  voted  at  the  last 
Presidential  election;  because  those  statements  would  not 
eliminate  the  colored  vote.  Good-natured  men,  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  must  recognize  that  the  colored  vote  is  now  absolutely 
eliminated. 

So  wipe  out  that  feature  of  the  inquiry,  and  consider,  if  you 
please,  as  the  Mississippians  do,  the  white  votables  only,  of 
whom  there  are  150,030. 

A  very  large  majority  of  the  white  voters  fail  to  vote.  They 
cast  11,000  less  votes  at  the  Presidential  election  in  1900  than 
they  did  in  1896.  In  1902  in  one  Congressional  district  the 
aggregate  vote  cast  for  Congressman  was  only  1,146;  the  high- 
est in  any  district  3,245,  and  the  average  for  all  the  eight  Con- 
gressional districts  only  2,257  per  district! 

Thus,  in  shaping  national  policies,  not  only  do  not  any  of 
the  colored  people,  but  not  one-eighth  of  the  white  voters, 
express  a  voting  interest! 

But  what  about  primaries!  Of  one  party  only  are  they,  and 
not  for  the  purpose  of  dividing  the  voters  upon  party  lines  or 
policies.  They  are  not  party  conventions  assembled  to  ratify  or 
to  outline  party  action. 

They  say  they  have  caucuses — one  party  does.  So  do 
caucuses  occur  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  What  of  that? 
The  fact  remains  that  "such  profound  and  increasing  indiffer- 


108  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

ence  of  an  electorate  is  a  state  of  things  never  contemplated 
in  the  Republic."  In  one  town  where  a  mayor,  a  marshal,  a 
treasurer  and  four  aldermen  were  elected,  only  eight  votes  were 
cast,  and  out  of  the  eight  votes  seven  are  said  to  have  been 
candidates  for  office.  "The  same  men  were  voters,  candidates 
for  office  and  judges  of  election  to  pass  as  judges  on  their  own 
votes  for  themselves;  and  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  they  could 
get  only  one  outsider  to  come  to  the  polls  and  cast  his  ballot! " 

Such  political  stagnation  is  due  to  the  "  oligarchy "  that 
debases  the  electorate  that  it  dominates.  The  very  existence  of 
such  an  "oligarchy"  depends  on  its  domination  over  ignorance. 
"Political  oligarchy"  first  soothes  its  opponents  into  indiffer- 
ence; then  cajoles  them  by  misrepresentations ;  and  finally 
silences  them  by  threats. 

That  "political  oligarchy"  in  Mississippi  sends  to  Congress, 
besides  two  Senators,  eight  Representatives  to  vote  and  to 
speak  on  all  questions  of  national  legislation  and  administra- 
tion, for  an  electorate  that  in  New  York  can  send  to  the  House 
of  Representatives  only  a  single  voice  and  a  single  vote.  In 
this  way,  too,  the  "oligarchy"  gets  ten  votes  in  the  electoral 
college. 

Take  another  illustration  from  a  Democratic  State,  where 
the  white  voters  are  in  the  majority.  Out  of  a  voting  population 
in  Louisiana  exceeding  300,000  voters,  a  majority  of  whom 
were  white,  only  67,905  votes  were  polled  for  Presidential 
electors  in  1900 — less  than  half  the  white  voters  voting ; — while 
at  the  Congressional  election  in  1902  there  were  polled  for 
representatives  in  Congress  in  all  the  seven  districts  of  the 
State  only  26,625  votes;  not  one-tenth  of  the  white  voters 
voting,  and  an  average  to  a  district  of  only  3,752  votes. 

The  "political  oligarchy"  that  accomplishes  this  result 
sends  to  Congress,  besides  two  Senators,  seven  Representatives 
to  vote  and  to  speak  on  all  matters  of  national  legislation  and 
administration  for  an  electorate  that  in  New  York  can  send 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  109 

to  the  House  of  Representatives  but  a  single  voice  and  a  single 
vote.  In  this  way,  too,  the  "oligarchy"  gets  nine  votes  in 
the  electoral  college. 

Take  another  Democratic  State.  In  Florida,  out  of  over 
139,379  votables,  of  whom  a  majority  (77,962)  are  white,  there 
were  polled  for  President  in  1900  only  39,411  votes;  while 
for  all  the  Congressional  candidates  in  all  three  districts  of 
the  State  there  were  polled  in  1902  only  16,340  votes — scarcely 
one  out  of  four  of  the  white  men  voting;  an  average  of  only 
5,443  votes  cast  in  a  Congressional  district. 

The  "political  oligarchy"  that  controls  this  State  and  keeps 
three-quarters  of  the  white  men  away  from  the  polls  (besides 
all  the  colored  voters)  sends  to  Congress,  besides  two  Senators, 
three  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  represent 
an  electorate  that  in  New  York  State  can  secure  but  a  single 
member.  In  this  way,  too,  the  "oligarchy"  gets  five  votes 
in  the  Electoral  College. 

Take  another  Democratic  State.  In  South  Carolina,  out 
of  aggregate  votables  of  283,235,  of  whom  130,375  are  white, 
only  50,815  votes  were  polled  for  Presidential  electors  in  1900; 
and  in  1902  for  all  Congressional  candidates  in  all  the  seven 
districts  of  the  State  only  32,085  votes  were  polled,  an  average 
of  4,583  to  a  district.  Thus  in  shaping  national  policies  a 
voting  interest  has  been  last  expressed  by  only  about  one- 
quarter  of  the  white  voters,  and  not  at  all  by  the  colored 
people. 

The  "political  oligarchy"  that  controls  this  State  and 
represses  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  white  voters  sends  to 
Congress,  besides  two  Senators,  seven  members  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  represent  an  electorate  that  in  New 
York  State  can  secure  only  a  single  member.  In  this  way, 
too,  the  "oligarchy"  gets  nine  votes  in  the  Electoral  College 
for  President  and  Vice-President. 

This  State  and  the  State  of  Mississippi  are  the  only  two 


110  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

States  where  the  colored  votables  outnumber  the  white  votables,* 
and  what  is  said  here  about  elections  relates  exclusively  to 
white  voters;  and,  therefore,  as  completely  eliminates  the 
bugaboo  of  "race  question"  as  should  satisfy  the  most  strenu- 
ous Democrat. 

In  Georgia,  vainly  imagined  by  the  uninformed  to  be  replete 
with  generous  political  differences  and  free  discussions  and 
votings,  there  was  a  voting  population  of  177,878  white  and 
147,348  colored  voters;  in  all  325,226  voters.  Thus  it  appears 
that  only  a  trifle  over  one-third  of  the  voters  [122,715]  actually 
participated  in  the  exceptional  Presidential  election  of  1900; 
while  about  one-quarter  of  the  voters  [81,538  out  of  a  total' 
vote  cast  of  87,104]  elected  the  Governor  in  1902. 

More  significant  still  in  illustrating  the  forces  dominating 
the  people  of  Georgia  are  the  election  returns  for  their  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress.  In  the  eleven  districts  allowed  to  this 
State  there  were  no  voters  in  1902  opposing  the  Democratic 
candidate,  except  in  two  districts  (Seventh  and  Ninth),  where 
a  Populist  candidate  was  accredited  in  the  Seventh  District 
with  860  and  in  the  Ninth  with  20  votes. 

The  total  vote  in  all  the  eleven  districts  was  only  40,447, 
not  one-quarter  of  the  white  voters  voting;  to  represent  whom 
Georgia  sends  eleven  members  to  the  House  of  Representatives. 
Such  a  constituency  in  Ohio  or  New  York  gets  only  a  single 
Representative. 

In  the  Georgia  State  Legislature  the  Republicans  were 
allowed  one  Senator  out  of  a  total  of  44,  and  three  out  of  175 
members  of  the  lower  house. 

The  average  vote  for  a  member  of  Congress  was  3,677,  instead 
of  ten  times  that  number  required  for  one  Ohio  or  one  New 
York  member. 

Thus  it  takes  TEN  votes  in  New  York  to  constitute  the  elec- 
toral equivalent  of  one  voter  in  Georgia. 

*  See  footnote,  p.  56. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  111 

Where  the  Empire  State  has  one  voice  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  one  vote  to  appeal  for  its  own  great 
interests,  and  for  the  national  welfare,  Georgia  raises  its  united 
eleven  voices  and  eleven  votes  to  howl  for  and  to  hold  for  a 
vicious  "political  oligarchy." 

"Shall  the  wrongdoer  be  brought  to  bay  by  the  people  or 
must  justice  wait  upon  political  oligarchy?"  That  is  one  of 
the  questions  asked  by  Judge  Parker  in  reliance  upon  that 
"political  oligarchy"  furnishing  him  with  thirteen  votes  from 
the  State  of  Georgia  in  the  electoral  college;  in  reliance  also 
upon  that  same  "oligarchy"  furnishing  him  in  all  151  votes 
in  the  electoral  college. 

The  national  policy  of  a  party,  its  tendencies  and  possi- 
bilities are  measured  by  the  actions  of  its  chosen  leaders  in 
Congress — its  Senators  and  Representatives. 

Twenty-six  out  of  thirty-three  Democratic  Senators,  and 
120  out  of  178  Democratic  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, were  elected  by  this  "political  oligarchy,"  and  in 
Congress  constitute  a  "political  oligarchy"  that  indisputably 
dominates  the  Democratic  party  in  both  houses  of  Congress, 
and  therefore  in  the  nation.  Yet  the  constituency  thus  repre- 
sented by  120  votes  in  the  House  and  26  Senators  cast  less 
votes  by  189,817  for  this  "political  oligarchy"  than  were  cast 
by  the  constituencies  represented  by  the  remaining  7  Demo- 
cratic Senators  and  the  remaining  58  Democratic  Representa- 
tives in  the  House.*  .  .  . 

Not  a  single  one  of  those  26  out  of  33  Democratic  Senators, 
or  of  those  120  out  of  178  Democratic  Representatives,  repre- 
sents a  constituency  where  national  policies  have  been  con- 
sidered, much  less  put  in  issue,  discussed  and  voted  upon. 
They  are  all  chosen  upon  a  single  imaginary  issue,  namely, 
that  the  colored  man  as  such  shall  not  vote.  Even  upon  that 

*  Referring  to  the  58th  Congress. 


112  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

issue  there  is  no  discussion  and  no  opposing  candidate.  The 
Republicans  were  without  candidates.  If,  with  occasional 
exceptions  in  the  border  States,  there  was  a  Republican  candi- 
date here  and  there,  this  artificial  issue  and  none  other  was 
specially  assigned. 

No  reliance  at  the  polls  was  placed  upon  party  measures 
affecting  the  currency,  the  nation's  industries,  the  tariff,  treaties 
with  foreign  countries,  the  condition  of  the  Treasury,  the  ex- 
pediency of  this  or  that  expenditure  or  tax,  or  any  of  the 
essential  features  of  legislation  or  administration. 

The  single  unopposed  issue  is  to  retain  "our  party"  in  power 
at  home,  with  as  much  United  States  power  annexed  for  our 
home  use  in  defying  the  Constitutional  amendments  as  favor- 
able alliances  with  our  partisan  allies  in  New  York  and  other 
States  can  secure. 

That  "political  oligarchy"  has  no  convictions,  no  purposes 
other  than  by  some  expedient  to  capture  for  itself  the  allied 
power  of  the  so-called  "doubtful"  States.  If  their  allies  in 
New  York,  Connecticut  or  Illinois  can  satisfy  this  "political 
oligarchy"  that  a  specified  candidate,  a  specified  platform, 
or  a  specified  scheme  of  campaign,  will  accomplish  their  pur- 
pose and  win  a  campaign,  they  are  eager  to  adopt  it.* 

If  the  votes  of  the  least  informed,  of  the  most  vicious,  of 
the  irresponsible  adventurers,  of  the  unintelligent  foreign 
masses,  thronging  the  great  cities,  can  be  secured,  let  it  be  by 
device,  by  caprice,  by  misrepresentation,  by  delusion  or  snares, 
or  by  some  method  still  worse,  the  vitality  of  this  "political 
oligarchy"  is  invigorated,  its  purposes  strengthened,  and  its 
lease  of  life  enlarged.  Say  that  such  an  alliance  can  be  obtained, 
and  all  principles  and  policies,  for  which  party  is  the  legitimate 
exponent,  are  extinguished  in  the  flame  of  partisan  expediency. 

Silver,  or  paper,  or  gold  is  nothing  to  this"  political  oligarchy," 
except  as  a  wherewithal  to  purchase  power. 

*  This  remains  true  for  1008. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  113 

Party  virtues,  or  party  vices,  or  party  errors,  of  friend  or 
foe,  may  flow  as  copiously  as  a  political  Niagara,  yet  they  are 
uninstructive  and  valueless  to  that  oligarchy,  except  to  furnish 
the  power  to  run  its  political  dynamo.  What  only  is  sought 
is  power  to  supply  the  whole  country  with  the  oligarchy's 
destructive  political  current — a  current  that  will  bring  stagna- 
tion to  the  electorate  as  well  as  to  the  industries  of  the 
nation.  .  .  . 

In  another  pamphlet*  were  the  following  statements  and 
statistics: 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  Republican  platform,  in  de- 
manding that  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral 
Colleges  be  reduced  in  States  where  the  elective  franchise  has 
been  limited  by  special  discrimination,  is  raising  the  race  ques- 
tion. This  is  not  true.  The  platform  does  not  touch  the  race 
question.  The  clause  in  question  has  to  do  with  a  more  vital 
and  important  matter,  the  equality  of  voters.  .  .  . 

One  voter  in  South  Carolina  equals  seven  in  Pennsylvania. 
.  .  .  One  South  Carolina  voter  equals  seven  in  Massa- 
chusetts. .  .  .  One  voter  in  South  Carolina  equals  eight 
in  New  York,  and  doesn't  have  to  work  so  hard  to  elect  his 
man.  .  .  .  One  white  man  in  Alabama  is  worth  four  in 
Minnesota.  .  .  .  Kansas  has  eight  Congressmen  and  Louisi- 
ana has  seven,  but  in  Kansas  a  total  of  542,328  votes  is  re- 
quired to  elect  the  Congressmen,  whereas  in  Louisiana  but 
26,065  are  needed.  Let  us  see  how  this  is  done.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Ransdell,  of  the  Fifth  Louisiana  District,  was  elected 
by  2,645  votes  out  of  2,677  cast,  in  a  district  whose  popula- 
tion is  207,430.  One  in  seventy-two  of  the  population  voted. 

Mr.  Meyer,  of  the  First  District,  received  3,910  votes  out 
of  4,776,  in  a  district  whose  population  is  178,670,  and  which 
takes  in  part  of  the  city  of  New  Orleans;  866  Republican  votes 

*  Equality  of  Voters,  issued  by  Republican  National  Committee. 


114  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

were  cast  in  opposition.  One  in  thirty-seven  of  the  population 
was  educated  up  to  the  voting  point.  The  other  New  Orleans 
representative,  Mr.  Davey,  received  5,014  votes  to  868  for  his 
Republican  opponent.  One  in  thirty-one  voted  in  his  district. 
It  will  be  observed  that  illiteracy  in  New  Orleans  is  only  about 
half  as  common  as  in  the  country  districts. 

But  what  about  Kansas,  that  new  State  which  was  scarcely 
settled  forty  years  ago?  In  all  the  Kansas  districts  but  one, 
20  per  cent,  of  the  population  votes.  In  the  Sixth  District 
Mr.  Reeder  received  18,300  votes  to  15,832  for  the  Democratic 
candidate  and  306  for  the  Socialist.  (There  are  as  many 
Socialists  in  this  district  as  there  are  Republicans  in  some 
of  the  Southern  States  according  to  the  votes).  Mr.  Reeder 
had  2,162  majority  over  the  combined  opposition — more  than 
the  entire  vote,  2,124,  which  elected  a  Democrat  in  the  Sixth 
Louisiana  District. 

One  in  five  of  the  population  of  Kansas  votes.  One  in  seventy- 
two  of  the  population  of  three  Louisiana  districts  votes.  One 
Democratic  voter  in  Louisiana  is  worth  fourteen  or  fifteen 
Kansas  Republicans.  How  about  that? 

There  is  not  one  district  in  Georgia  where  more  than  four 
per  cent,  of  the  population  votes.  In  the  Seventh  District 
the  proportion  is  1  to  32;  in  the  Sixth,  1  to  42;  in  the  First, 
1  to  50;  in  the  Second,  1  to  59;  in  the  Third  and  Eleventh, 
1  to  63;  in  the  Fourth,  1  to  64;  in  the  Tenth,  1  to  67;  in  the 
Eighth,  1  to  60,  and  in  the  Fifth,  as  has  been  said,  1  to  85. 

In  the  Second  and  Sixth  districts  of  Iowa  between  one- 
fourth  and  one-fifth  of  the  population  votes,  while  the  average 
throughout  the  State  is  about  one  in  five.  One  Georgia  Demo- 
crat equal  to  seventeen  Iowa  Republicans!  It  sounds  like  the 
old  days  when  one  planter  and  his  two  or  three  hundred  slaves 
equaled  some  scores  of  free  Northern  workmen.  .  .  . 

In  Mississippi,  in  several  districts,  the  total  vote  in  the  elec- 
tion of  the  58th  Congress  varied  from  1,146  to  3,245  in  popula- 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  115 

tions  of  162,340  to  232,174,  the  proportion  of  voters  in  these 
districts  being  from  1  to  57  to  1  to  202!  In  New  Jersey,  with 
nearly  similar  population  according  to  districts,  the  total  vote 
was  from  29,530  to  45,951  and  the  proportion  of  voters  from 
one-fourth  to  one-seventh. 


The  electoral  inequalities  thus  manifested  show  a  discrimina- 
tion that  calls  for  drastic  treatment. 


2.  At  the  Philadelphia  meeting  on  March  1,  1906,  to  which 
reference  has  been  made,  one  of  the  speakers,  Mr.  A.  H.  Grimke, 
called  attention  to  the  wrongs  of  the  colored  people  electorally 
in  the  South,  under  the  rule  of  the  oligarchy  in  control  there. 
He  said  in  part : 

".  .  .  At  the  last  Presidential  election  (1904)  the  com- 
bined vote  of  Alabama,  Louisiana,  Mississippi  and  South 
Carolina  for  39  electors,  to  be  exact,  was  just  186,253,  while 
the  vote  of  Massachusetts  for  16  electors  was  442,732.  Once 
more:  is  it  not  immensely  ominous  and  significant  the  marked 
shrinkage  in  1904  of  the  popular  vote  for  electors  in  Alabama, 
North  Carolina  and  Virginia,  States  which  had  but  recently 
revised  their  constitutions,  as  compared  with  the  popular  vote 
of  the  same  States  for  electors  in  1900?  There  was,  for  example, 
a  shrinkage  of  the  popular  vote  in  Alabama  of  nearly  50,000 
polls;  in  North  Carolina  the  shrinkage  amounted  to  nearly 
85,000 ;  and  in  Virginia  it  ran  up  to  more  than  135,000.  These 
figures  are  eloquent  of  great  wrongs  done  to  the  negro.  They 
are  not  less  eloquent  of  great  dangers  which  now  threaten 
to  subvert  free  institutions  in  the  Republic." 

The  cause  of  the  disfranchisement  practised  by  the  oligarchy 
is  the  existence  of  class,  of  the  spirit  of  caste.  Frederick 
Douglass  said:  "The  spirit  of  caste  is  malignant  and  dangerous 
everywhere."  There  was  a  class  and  there  was  a  caste  in  the 


116  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

days  of  slavery.     There  is  a  class  and  there  is  a  caste  in  a 
greater  degree  to-day  than  there  was  then. 

An  aristocracy  in  a  Republic  is  a  paradox,  and  especially 
so  when  it  is  representative  of  a  plutocracy,  pure  and  simple, 
claiming  control  over  the  affairs  of  the  rest  of  the  people,  many, 
if  not  most,  of  whom  are  more  entitled  by  their  brains,  their 
character  and  their  good  citizenship,  to  be  aristocratic  in  its 
true  etymological  sense.  Indeed,  the  pluto-aristocracy  to 
which  one  refers,  and  which  has  during  the  last  few  decades  been 
insidiously  creeping  into  our  national  life,  is  the  opposite  of 
aristo  crated,  particularly  in  the  South,  where  the  men  who 
control  and  direct,  through  plutocracy,  electoral  frauds  and 
abuse  of  power,  have  acquired  that  plutocratic  influence  in 
ways  that  are  "dark"  and  "peculiar,"  in  some  cases  fraudful 
and  illegal.  Yet,  owing  to  the  practical  nullification  there  of 
the  United  States  Constitution;  the  manipulation  of  the  ballot 
box;  and  the  seeming  inability  of  the  courts  to  reach  and 
penalize  the  acts  of  these  plutocrats,  the  astounding  and  sadden- 
ing fact  remains  that  here  in  America,  that  has  produced  states- 
men, warriors,  poets,  artists,  musicians  and  captains  of  industry 
in  almost  a  prodigality  of  numbers,  the  control  of  public  affairs, 
particularly  in  the  South,  should  be  in  the  hands  of  men  who 
neither  by  merit  nor  character,  but  sheerly  through  wealth 
or  chicanery,  dominate  the  people  and  arrogate  to  themselves 
a  class  distinction  utterly  undeserved  and  wholly  out  of  place 
in  a  country  of  free  institutions.  Class  cannot  exist,  caste 
cannot  be  allowed  in  a  "republic"  without  undermining  its 
very  foundations.  In  a  republic  classes  are  influenced  by, 
if  not  dependent  upon,  the  political  power  of  the  individuals 
comprising  the  class.  That  power  is  at  the  basis  of  all  unity 
of  action.  Subjugate  it,  and  the  safety  of  modern  society  is 
intruded  upon.  The  slave  when  a  chattel  added  three-fifths 
to  his  master's  political  strength  as  a  voter.  For  every  five 
slaves  owned  the  master  practically  cast  three  votes  in  addition 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  117 

to  his  own.  That  is  the  way  it  worked.  Now  the  master 
virtually  casts  five  votes;  and  notwithstanding  the  increase  of 
population  and  the  consequent  increase  of  male  citizens  of 
voting  age,  the  fact  is  that  there  is  a  steadily  decreasing  vote 
where  the  latter  conditions  exist.  Such  a  diminution  of  and 
indifference  to  the  suffrage  evinces  a  non-participation  in 
public  affairs  which  is  destructive  of  representative  govern- 
ment. In  a  State,  for  example,  containing  counties  the  popula- 
tion and  voters  of  which  are  predominantly  colored,  the  latter, 
although  disfranchised,  furnish  the  pretext  by  which  the  few 
white  men  who  do  vote  in  those  counties  outweigh  represen- 
tatively in  conventions  and  State  bodies  the  white  men  who 
vote  in  counties  where  the  population  and  voters  are  chiefly 
whites.  Where  such  conditions  exist  heavy  representation  is 
given  to  this  small  minority.  The  whites  in  the  black  counties 
numerically  get  a  larger  proportion  of  power  in  the  legislature, 
in  Democratic  conventions  and  in  other  representative  assem- 
blies than  do  the  whites  in  the  white  counties. 

Illustrations  of  this  were  furnished  to  the  compiler  of  these 
pages  in  a  note  from  a  prominent  Republican  who  served 
in  the  Confederate  army  and  who  wrote  in  1905  respecting  a 
pretended  State  election  in  1901  in  the  State  of  Alabama. 
He  thus  describes  the  legislation  which  brought  about  the 
Constitutional  Convention  that  framed  what  is  now  acted  upon 
as  the  State  Constitution:  Prior  to  the  act  under  which  this 
Convention  was  held,  an  act  providing  for  it  had  already  been 
passed,  in  such  terms  as  would  have  made  it  difficult  for  its 
promoters  to  carry  with  them  a  majority  of  the  State;  so  this 
act  was  repealed  and  another  enactment  substituted,  adjusting 
the  membership  of  the  proposed  convention  in  such  a  way 
that  the  Black  Belt  counties  could  really  count  in  66  members 
from  the  State  at  large  and  accomplish  this  in  4,  5  or  6  of  the 
Black  Belt  counties,  no  matter  what  the  vote  was  in  other 
counties  of  the  State.  It  is  a  singular  circumstance  that  the 


118  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

vote  in  the  Black  Belt  counties,  where  negroes  largely  pre- 
dominate, was  practically  all  for  the  convention.  For  example, 
Dallas  County,  with  some  5,000  more  negroes  than  whites, 
was  counted  for  the  convention,  and  then,  by  more  than  2,000 
majority,  for  its  ratification.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  4,000 
to  5,000  negroes  apparently  voted  to  disfranchise  themselves! 
A  corresponding  showing  was  made  for  other  Black  Belt 
counties.  In  the  State  Constitution  the  representation  is 
fixed  and  cannot  be  changed  by  amendments.  One  result 
of  this  is  that  in  a  Black  Belt  county  a  disfranchised  negro  has 
from  six  to  ten  times  as  much  power  in  representatives  and 
State  Senatorships  as  a  white  man  who  can  vote  has  in  a 
white  county. 

The  writer  of  the  letter  then  went  on  to  say  that  there  are 
many  like  himself  who  wish  the  question  settled  as  to  represen- 
tation in  Congress  under  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  and 
as  to  the  enforcement  or  suppression  of  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment. In  other  words,  they  want  the  Constitution  either 
obeyed  and  respected  and  enforced,  or  else  repealed  in  these 
War  Amendments,  declaring  that  if  Congress  lets  the  matter 
stand  as  it  is  they  will  be  in  a  poor  fix  to  fight  the  inequalities 
of  representation  in  their  own  State.  With  the  question  of 
representation  fought  out  and  voted  on  in  the  State  of  Ala- 
bama in  good  faith,  many  Republicans  believe  that  the  State 
would  go  against  the  Democrats  in  the  near  future. 

If,  therefore,  there  be  any  way  in  which  the  silent  South,  white 
and  black,  shall  be  given  a  chance  to  be  heard,  either  upon 
local  matters  or  upon  matters  of  national  concern,  it  is  in  the 
interest  of  representative  government  that  that  voice  should 
be  heard  and  heeded.  The  re-casting  of  the  lines  of  representa- 
tion on  a  fair  and  honest  basis,  by  counties  and  States  or  Con- 
gressional districts,  would  give  the  ''silent  South"  a  chance 
to  be  heard.  It  would  give  it  "a  chance  to  appeal  from  those 
States  drunk  on  the  race  question  to  their  sober  second  thought; 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  119 

a  chance  to  show  them  the  folly  and  madness  of  the  disfranchise- 
ment  and  consequent  degradation  of  their  negro  labor  as  an 
economic  factor  in  their  development  and  civilization."  The 
liberal  sentiment  that  would  thus  be  awakened  in  the  South 
would  be  contagious  upward  and  downward,  and  exert  a 
leavening  influence  towards  the  promotion  of  remedial  meas- 
ures there,  and  re-act  upon  Northern  apathy.  It  might  not 
immediately  change  the  present  status  of  the  colored  people, 
either  in  law  or  in  fact,  but  it  could  not  hurt  them,  for  they 
are  already  disfranchised;  nor  would  such  a  step  interfere 
with  the  power  that  Congress  has  to  enforce  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  by  appropriate  legislation — a  power  that  might 
then  be  readily  exercised  whenever  the  majority  in  Congress 
can  "screw  its  courage  to  the  sticking  point." 
It  has  been  well  said: 

"The  reduction  of  Southern  representation  will  certainly  break  up  the 
present  apathetic  state  of  the  country  in  respect  to  the  negro." 

With  that  breaking  up  a  reaction  would  follow  in  favor  of 
freedom  and  in  due  time  a  public  sentiment  would  arise  that 
would  promote  legislation,  State  and  Federal,  toward  enforc- 
ing the  rights  of  the  colored  people  of  the  South.  If  the  South, 
after  such  a  reduction,  should  persist — but  it  would  not  long 
persist — in  its  present  purpose  to  nullify  the  spirit  and  letter 
of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  and  to  reduce  the  colored  people 
to  the  condition  of  a  permanently  subordinate  and  servile  class, 
without  rights  as  men  and  citizens  which  the  South  is  bound 
to  respect,  the  sooner  that  Southern  representation  is  reduced 
"the  better  it  will  be  for  the  negro  and  for  the  nation."  It 
will  be  one  step,  but  one  step  only,  towards  destroying  the 
pernicious  sectionalism  now  threatening  the  welfare  of  the 
nation  at  large. 

Abuses  of  all  kinds,  alleged  to  affect  trade  and  commerce, 
currency,  labor,  health  and  family  conditions,  combinations 


120  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

and  monopolies,  food  and  medicine,  have  been  and  are  made 
matters  of  national  investigation  and  legislation.  Hence 
history  will  record  it  as  one  of  the  singular  omissions  of  these 
times,  that  the  most  flagrant  of  all  discriminations  affecting 
republican  life,  viz.,  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  native 
Americans,  has  been  abandoned  by  national  authority  and 
left  to  flourish  under  sectionalism  as  a  noxious  weed  in  a  fertile 
soil. 

The  politicians  and  the  representatives  of  that  sectionalism 
are  exacting  and  aggressive,  not  to  say  insolent,  to-day  on  the 
voting  question,  because  as  a  peculiar  and  unduly  favored 
section  it  has  its  extra  numerical  strength  in  Congress  and  in 
the  Electoral  College  by  reason  of  the  very  disfranchisement 
which  it  has  accomplished.  Reduce  that  strength  by  25  to 
35  Congressmen,  and  there  would  follow  in  due  time  a  corres- 
ponding diminution  in  the  arrogance  and  aggressiveness  and 
the  unjustifiable  sectionalism  that  now  prevails.  As  the  power 
of  this  combination  declines  in  numerical  strength  in  Congress 
and  in  the  Electoral  College,  it  would  decline  also  in  its  relative 
importance  concerning  the  management  and  choice  of  leaders 
in  the  Democratic  party.  Even  the  Democratic  party  itself 
would  then  pay  less  heed  than  it  does  now  to  the  claims  of 
this  sectional  faction,  to  its  demands,  to  its  threats,  to  its 
intrigues  and  pretences,  and  to  its  un-Republican  tendencies. 

One  writer  has  shown  how  necessary  the  franchise  is  for 
political  manhood  and  uplift.  He  writes:  "  ...  the  loss 
of  the  franchise  has  changed  our  (colored)  status  to  such  a 
degree  that  we  no  longer  demand,  but  beg  and  supplicate  even 
for  those  fundamental  needs  without  which  education  and 
general  improvement  would  be  very  doubtful." 

Political  manhood  is  cultivated  by  the  franchise;  political 
manhood  is  discouraged  by  disfranchisement. 

"  When  you  have  effaced  a  man,  civilly  and  politically,  in  a  government 
like  our  own,"  asks  one  writer,  "  what  is  he?  What  does  he  amount  to? 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  121 

Who  cares  for  him?  What  rights  has  he  which  any  other  class  is  bound 
to  respect?  He  is  a  mere  nonentity,  entitled  to  no  consideration,  and  with 
no  refuge  to  which  he  can  fly  in  the  hour  of  his  need.  To  be  civilly  and 
politically  effaced  is  to  be  civilly  and  politically  dead;  and  to  be  civilly 
and  politically  dead  is  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  any  and  every  political  party 
and  organization,  and  to  be  under  the  heel  of  the  worst  elements  in  the 
community  without  any  means  of  redress." 

In  a  republic  citizenship  means  much ;  the  right  to  the 
ballot  means  representative  government  by  the  democratic 
expression  of  the  will  of  the  people  at  the  polls.  It  is  the 
symbol  of  the  people's  sovereignty. 

The  attempt  to  keep  the  colored  people  as  a  race  of  dis- 
franchised servitors  is  doomed  to  failure,  just  as  in  Russia  to-day 
where  the  voice  of  the  peasantry  is  making  itself  felt  in  spite 
of  despotism  and  suppression.  This  was  well  set  forth  in  a 
recent  interview  with  Gregory  Spirodonovitch  that  appeared 
in  the  New  York  Times: 

"You  can  tear  a  few  leaves  off  a  tree,  but  you  cannot  stop  the  foliage 
of  spring;  and  I  tell  you  that  our  long,  long  winter  is  past,  and  spring 
has  come  to  Russia.  .  .  . 

"A  people  which  in  one  short  generation  has  produced  a  Tolstoi,  a 
Tschaikowsky,  Gorky,  a  peasant's  son,  Mendeleeff,  the  great  chemist, 
and  Mechnikow,  whom  France  has  honored  with  the  succession  of  Pasteur, 
has  no  reason  to  despair  of  its  sons.  We  can  and  will  produce  legislators 
and  leaders  of  men  as  soon  as  the  old  policy  of  suppression  is  entirely  done 
away  with." 

"And  will  there  be  followers,  too  ?  " 

"Most  assuredly.  I  am  the  son  of  a  peasant  and  I  have  grown  up 
with  the  peasants,  and  yet  I  am  daily  amazed  at  the  shrewdness  and 
political  sagacity  which  our  people  are  exhibiting.  I  tell  you  the  Russian 
peasant  will  amaze  the  world  when  his  living  chance  is  given  him.  So 
far  as  I  have  seen  them,  the  arguments  which  are  advanced  to  show  our 
unfitness  for  liberal  institutions  or  for  self-government  are  absurd.  They 
are  the  same  cunning  lies  that  have  been  used  from  time  immemorial  by 
those  who  have  sought  their  own  advantage  by  keeping  the  people  in  leading- 
strings  when  not  in  chains. 

"  'You  must  not  go  near  the  water,'  they  say,  'until  you  have  learned  to 
swim.' " 


122  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

The  trivial  technicalities  by  which  the  accomplishment  of 
disfranchising  is  here  and  there  in  law  defended,  or  sought  to 
be  sustained,  have  no  relevancy  to  a  discussion  purely  political; 
and  they  are  as  foreign  to  its  purpose  and  to  its  issues,  except 
to  befog  them,  as  were  the  technicalities  of  the  slave  oligarchy 
in  1854r-60,  by  which  it  sought  to  convince  the  nation  that  a 
slave  was  property  which  the  free  States  should  recognize, 
even  within  their  own  dominion,  and  that  slavery  was  a  divine 
institution  whose  extension  and  perpetuity  should  not  be 
forbidden  throughout  the  land.  The  ingenious  casuistry 
afforded  by  legal  technicalities — as,  for  instance,  whether  the 
United  States  Constitution  has  been  successfully  evaded — 
has  no  place  in  the  discussion  of  fundamental  principles. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  compelling  the  return  by  the  United 
States  Marshal  of  slaves  found  in  the  free  States,  was  one  of 
the  unfortunate  results  of  the  propaganda  for  slavery. 

Another  was  in  the  collisions  that  actually  occurred  in 
Territories  *  because  the  settlers  sent  there  from  the  South 

*"John  Brown  in  Kansas  settled,  like  a  steadfast  Yankee  farmer, 

Brave  and  godly,  with  four  sons,  all  stalwart  men  of  might. 
There  he  spoke  aloud  for  freedom,  and  the  border-strife  grew  warmer, 
Till  the  Rangers  fired  his  dwelling,  in  his  absence,  in  the  night; 
And  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
Came  homeward  in  the  morning — to  find  his  house  burnt  down. 

Then  he  grasped  his  trusty  rifle  and  boldly  fought  for  freedom; 

Smote  from  border  unto  border  the  fierce  invading  band; 
And  he  and  his  brave  boys  vowed,  so  might  Heaven  help  and  speed  'em! 

They  would  save  those  grand  old  prairies  from  the  curse  that  blights  the  land; 
And  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
Said,  'Boys,  the  Lord  will  aid  us!'  and  he  shoved  his  ramrod  down. 

And  the  Lord  did  aid  these  men,  and  they  labored  day  and  even, 

Saving  Kansas  from  its  peril,  and  their  very  lives  seemed  charmed. 
Till  the  ruffians  killed  one  son,  in  the  blessed  light  of  Heaven, 
In  cold  blood  the  fellows  slew  him,  as  he  journeyed  all  unarmed; 
Then  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
Shed  not  a  tear,  but  shut  his  teeth,  and  frowned  a  terrible  frown! 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  123 

demanded  that  slavery  be  recognized  in  the  Territories;  while 
the  North  claimed  that  these  Territories  should  remain  free. 
A  sanguinary  civil  war  in  the  Territories  was  waged  on  these 
lines  before  the  collisions  of  great  armies  subsequently  occurred. 

As  a  result  of  those  collisions  of  great  armies,  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  was_amended  by  the  adoption  of  the 
three  War  Amendments. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  declares,  "All  persons  born  or 
naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  subject  to  the  jurisdic- 
tion thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State 
wherein  they  reside." 

The  Fifteenth  Amendment  prohibits  race  discrimination 
in  respect  to  the  suffrage. 

What  the  South  to-day  through  its  white  leaders  is  trying  to 
do,  is  to  fix  the  status  of  the  colored  people  as  one  of  civil  and 
political  inferiority,  and  practically  to  ignore  and  to  nullify 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  foregoing  Amendments  to  the 
United  States  Constitution. 

How  this  affects  the  South  will  be  understood  by  the  follow- 
ing from  the  pen  of  a  thoughtful  observer  belonging  to  the 
disfranchised  race: 

"  Disfranchisement  of  the  negro  is  bad  for  the  South.  It  is  bad  for  her, 
in  the  first  place,  on  account  of  the  harmful  effect  produced  by  it  on  the 

Then  they  seized  another  brave  boy — not  amid  the  heat  of  battle, 

But  in  peace,  behind  his  plowshare — and  they  loaded  him  with  chains, 
And  with  pikes,  before  their  horses,  even  as  they  goad  their  cattle, 
Drove  him  cruelly,  for  their  sport,  and  at  last  blew  out  his  brains; 
Then  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
Raised  his  right  hand  up  to  Heaven,  calling  Heaven's  vengeance  down. 

And  he  swore  a  fearful  oath,  by  the  name  of  the  Almighty, 

He  would  hunt  this  ravening  evil  that  had  scathed  and  torn  him  so; 
He  would  seize  it  by  the  vitals,  he  would  crush  it  day  and  night;  he 
Would  so  pursue  its  footsteps,  so  return  it  blow  for  blow, 
That  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
Should  be  a  name  to  swear  by,  in  backwoods  or  in  town!" — E.  C.  Stedman, 


124  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

black  labor.  It  makes  a  large  proportion  of  her  black  laboring  popu- 
pulation  restless  and  discontented  with  their  civil  and  social  condition, 
and  it  will  keep  them  so.  It  makes  it  well-nigh  impossible  for  this  restless 
and  discontented  labor  class  to  make  the  most  and  the  best  of  themselves 
with  the  limited  opportunities  afforded  them,  with  the  social  and  political 
restrictions  imposed  by  law  upon  them.  It  hinders  employers  of  this 
labor  from  producing  the  largest  and  the  best  results  with  it,  for  the  same 
cause.  For  to  obtain  by  means  of  this  labor  the  largest  and  best  results, 
employers  of  it  ought  to  do  the  things,  ought  to  have  the  State  do  the  things 
which  will  tend  to  reduce  the  natural  friction  between  labor  and  capital 
to  its  lowest  terms,  to  make  labor  contented  and  happy,  surely  not  the 
things  which  will  have  the  opposite  effect  on  that  labor.  Otherwise  the 
energy  which  ought  to  go  into  production  will  be  scattered,  consumed 
in  contests  with  capital,  in  active  and  passive  resistance  to  bad  social 
and  economic  conditions,  in  effective  or  ineffective  striving  to  improve 
those  conditions.  .  .  The  grand  source  of  wealth  of  any  community 
is  its  labor.  .  .  A  labor  class  deprived  of  freedom,  of  a  voice  in  govern- 
ment, cannot  maintain  the  advantage  which  mere  intelligence  and  skill 
may  have  gained  for  it  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  As  it  loses  freedom, 
a  voice  in  the  government,  it  will  lose  ultimately  its  skill,  its  intelligence 
as  an  industrial  factor.  For  it  will  become,  in  effect,  subject  to,  if  not 
exactly  the  slave  of,  the  capitalistic  and  labor  classes  which  are  free,  which 
make  the  laws.  And  these  classes  will  invariably  act  on  the  assumption 
that  the  more  ignorant  such  a  subject  labor  class  is,  the  less  trouble  it  will 
cause.  .  .  Instead  of  establishing  schools  for  the  education  of  a  labor 
class  deprived  of  the  right  to  vote,  the  class  which  possesses  the  right  to 
vote  will  not  establish  new  ones,  and  will  in  addition  endeavor  to  lower 
the  standard  of  those  already  established,  and  then  to  do  away  with  them 
entirely.  The  chief  end  and  purpose  of  the  classes  having  the  right  to 
vote  will  be,  not  to  raise  the  average  of  literacy,  of  intelligence,  of  the 
class  without  that  right,  but  to  lower  the  same  in  order  the  better  to  keep 
it  in  a  state  of  permanent  industrial  subordination  and  inferiority  to  them- 
selves. And  so  the  negro  labor  of  the  South,  deprived  of  the  right  to  vote, 
will  see  its  schools  diminish  in  numbers  and  quality,  will  get,  in  one  State 
and  then  in  another,  fewer  schools  and  shorter  terms,  until  they  reach  the 
vanishing  point,  where,  in  large  portions  of  the  South,  negro  schools  will 
disappear  altogether.  Under  such  circumstances,  negro  labor,  instead  of 
advancing  in  intelligence  and  skill,  will  steadily  lose  the  ground  gained  by 
it  in  these  respects  since  the  war.  .  .  Ignorant  negro  labor  must  weigh 
the  South  down  heavily,  therefore,  in  that  industrial  struggle  in  which  it 


125 

is  now  engaged,  not  alone  with  the  rest  of  the  nation,  but  with  the  world. 
The  undue  political  influence  of  the  South  has  arisen  from  'the  right  in 
the  South  under  the  Constitution  to  count  in  the  apportionment  of  repre- 
sentatives among  the  States  five  of  her  slaves  for  three  freemen.'  This 
feature  of  the  Constitution  was  distinctly  aristocratic.  It  certainly  was 
not  Democratic.  For  it  gave  a  Southern  white  man  who  owned  five  negro 
slaves  an  electoral  value  in  the  Republic  four  times  greater  than  that  of  a 
Northern  white  man.  This  un-republican,  this  disproportionate  political 
importance  of  a  Southern  slave  owner  over  a  Northern  freeman  produced 
no  end  of  trouble  between  the  two  classes  of  men.  And  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  the  ideas  and  interests  of  these  two  classes  of  men  were  far  from 
being  identical,  that  there  was  on  the  contrary  no  way  of  bringing  about 
an  identity  of  ideas  and  interests  between  them, — for  while  one  of  these 
groups  was  born  and  bred  under  the  aristocratic  idea,  with  a  corresponding 
labor  system  which  rooted  itself  in  that  idea, — persons  living  to-day  may 
get  some  notion  of  the  fierceness  and  depth  of  the  ante-bellum  rivalry  which 
waxed  and  waned  and  waned  and  waxed  for  a  half  century,  between  the 
slave-holding  and  the  non-slave-holding  States  for  possession  of  the  general 
government,  as  a  coign  of  vantage  in  the  struggle  between  them  for  domi- 
nation in  the  Republic. 

"The  strife,  with  alternation  of  reverses  and  triumphs,  first  for  one  side 
and  then  for  the  other,  went  on  until  1861,  when  the  rivals  resorted  to  force 
to  settle  their  differences.  The  war  for  the  Union  decided  the  momentous 
conflict  in  favor  of  the  democratic  idea  and  its  system  of  free  labor.  The 
Thirteenth  Amendment  destroyed  slavery  and  the  slave  power ;  or  such, 
at  least,  was  its  purpose.  The  Fourteenth  Amendment  provided  forever 
against  a  revival  of  the  aristocratic  idea  of  inequality  of  civil  conditions 
between  the  races  in  the  South — the  real  ground  of  difference  between  the 
sections — by  declaring  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States 
to  be  citizens  of  the  United  States.  There  was  not  again  to  exist  in  the 
Southern  States  any  system  of  labor  to  take  the  place  of  the  old  slave 
labor  except  that  of  free  labor,  and  there  was  not  again  to  appear  any 
corresponding  political  power  in  the  South  to  take  the  place  of  the  defunct 
slave  power;  or  such,  at  least,  was  the  plain  purpose  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment.  But  in  order  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure  on  this  vital 
point,  a  supplementary  provision  was  incorporated  into  the  Amendment, 
to  reduce  the  representation  of  any  State  which  shall  deny  to  any  portion 
of  its  voting  population  the  right  to  vote,  in  the  proportion  which  the 
number  of  such  disfranchised  citizens  'shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of 
citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State.'  The  rest  of  the  nation 


126  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

intended  by  these  two  great  acts  to  destroy,  root  and  branch,  the  old  con- 
stitutional provision  which  entitled  the  South  to  count  five  slaves  as  three 
freemen  in  the  apportionment  of  representation  among  the  States.  It 
was  determined  to  rid  the  country  for  all  time  of  any  future  trouble  from 
that  cause.  The  Reconstruction  measures  attempted  to  introduce  into 
the  old  Slave  States  the  democratic  idea  and  a  labor  system  corresponding 
to  that  idea.  But  in  the  event  of  failure  in  these  regards,  and  the  ultimate 
revival  on  the  part  of  those  States  of  the  aristocratic  idea  and  a  labor 
system  corresponding  to  that  idea,  it  was  carefully  provided  that  such 
revival  of  the  old  artistocratic  idea  and  labor  system  should  be  accom- 
panied by  an  equivalent  loss  of  political  power  on  the  part  of  those  States. 
.  .  .  The  political  power  which  the  South  manages  to  retain  in  spite 
of  her  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  does  not,  therefore,  belong  to  her. 
.  .  .  The  democratic  idea  of  government  has  been  put  to  rout  in  every 
Southern  State  by  the  old  aristocratic  idea  founded  on  race  prejudice 
and  race  distinctions.  A  labor  system  is  fast  growing  up  about  this  idea, 
— a  labor  system  as  much  opposed  to  the  labor  system  of  the  rest  of  the 
nation  as  was  the  old  slave  system  to  the  free  labor  of  the  North.  There 
can  be  no  lasting  peace  between  them  now,  any  more  than  such  peace  was 
possible  between  them  in  the  period  before  the  war.  The  political  and 
industrial  interests  of  the  sections  are  not  the  same  and  cannot  be  made  the 
same  so  long  as  differences  so  fundamental  in  respect  to  government  and 
labor  exist  between  them.  The  conflict  of  the  two  contrary  ideas  of  govern- 
ment, of  the  two  contrary  labor  systems,  for  survivorship  in  the  Union,  may  be 
postponed,  as  it  is  to-day,  but  it  cannot  be  extinguished  except  by  the  extinction 
of  one  or  the  other  of  the  old  rivals.  For  they  are  doomed,  in  one  form  or 
another,  by  economic  and  social  laws,  to  ceaseless  rivalry  and  strife. 

"  In  this  strife  the  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  by  the  South  is  a  distinct 
victory  for  the  Southern  idea  over  the  Northern  idea,  the  Southern  rival 
over  the  Northern  rival.  The  Southern  idea  has  taken  on  new  life,  is 
re-sowing  itself,  striking  powerful  roots  into  Southern  soil.  And  while 
it  is  steadily  strengthening  its  ascendency  over  those  States,  its  pollen 
dust  is  slowly  spreading  in  many  devious  ways,  blown  by  winds  of  destiny 
beyond  the  limits  of  those  States  and  attacking  with  subtle,  far-reaching 
and  deep-reaching  influences  the  democratic  idea  of  the  rest  of  the  nation, 
giving  aid  and  form  to  all  those  feelings,  thoughts,  purposes,  hidden  or 
open,  but  active  in  the  Republic,  hostile  to  popular  government,  to  the 
democratic  principle  of  equality  and  universal  suffrage.  The  South  has 
thrown  down  its  gauge  of  battle  for  the  aristocratic  idea,  for  the  labor  system 
that  grew  out  of  that  idea.  This  gauge  of  battle  is  the  disfranchisement  of 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  127 

the  negro  because  he  is  negro  and  the  consequent  degradation  of  him  as  a 
laborer.  Will  the  North  accept  the  challenge  of  its  old  rival?  Will  it 
pick  up  the  gauge  of  battle  thus  thrown  down?  .  .  .  When  the  time  comes, 
as  come  it  must,  the  negro  will  mark  again,  as  he  did  formerly,  the  dead 
line  between  the  combatants,  between  the  aristocratic  idea  of  the  South 
and  the  democratic  idea  of  the  rest  of  the  nation ;  between  the  labor  system 
of  the  South  and  the  labor  system  of  the  rest  of  the  nation."  * 

*  Why  Disfranchisement  is  Bad,  Archibald  H.  Grimke. 

A  writer  said  recently:  "It  is  too  easily  assumed  that  the  ballot  is  a  mere  permit  con- 
ferred by  superiors  upon  inferiors  as  a  reward  of  merit.  But  the  truth  is  that  the 
ballot  is  a  defensive  weapon.  .  .  ." 

"The  ballot,  though  it  fall  as  still 
As  snowflakes  on  the  frozen  sod, 
Yet  executes  a  freeman's  will, 
As  lightning  does  the  will  of  God." — Pierpont. 


IX 

"Many  politicians  of  our  time  are  in  the  habit  of  laying  it  down  as  a 
self-evident  proposition  that  no  people  ought  to  be  free  till  they  are  fit 
to  use  their  freedom.  The  maxim  is  worthy  of  the  fool  in  the  old  story 
who  resolved  not  to  go  into  the  water  till  he  had  learned  to  swim." — 
MacauLay. 

"Majorities  proceed  upon  the  principle  that  rights  to  life  and  liberty 
are  natural  and  equal;  oligarchies  proceed  upon  the  theory  that  these  rights 
are  neither  equal  nor  natural,  but  are  gifts  from  superiors. " — Louis  F.  Post. 

Entrenched  in  the  South  to-day  is  an  aristocracy  based  pri- 
marily on  race.  The  whole  tendency  of  things  there  is  to  de- 
citizenize  the  blacks — to  reduce  them  to  a  state  of  permanent 
political  and  industrial  subordination  to  the  whites.  This  is 
aristocratizing  the  Republic  with  a  vengeance.  A  handful 
of  ruling  whites,  and  that  not  of  the  best  class  as  in  ante-bellum 
days,  casts  to-day  the  entire  vote  of  sections  and  thus  claims 
to  represent  all  their  black,  and  a  large  majority  of  their  white, 
citizens  at  National  and  State  elections. 

"  You  Americans  had  a  new  and  beautiful  land  out  of  which  your  fathers 
sought  to  realize  a  heaven  upon  earth,  and  how  has  it  ended?  In  no  part 
of  the  world  is  class  so  arrayed  against  class.  .  .  .  You  have  tried 
popular  development  en  masse,  why  not  try  the  development  of  the 
individual?  The  State  cannot  be  stronger  than  its  weaker  link.  You 
must  build  up  the  individual  before  you  build  up  the  State." — Tolstoi. 

A  reduction  in  representation  in  the  South  would  lead  to 
a  reduction  in  the  arrogant  and  aggressive  way  in  which  to-day 
it  handles  its  politics  as  well  as  the  "race  question"  so-called. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  129 

The  apathetic  attitude  of  the  national  government  has  been 
previously  animadverted  upon  in  regard  to  this  greatest  of 
all  discriminations  in  the  Republic.  The  wholesale  dis- 
franchisement  of  negroes  in  the  South  because  they  are  negroes 
has  become  not  only  an  intolerable  wrong,  but  an  imminent 
peril  to  the  Republic. 

Equality  and  fairness  of  political  representation  are  as 
essential  to-day  to  the  preservation  of  representative  govern- 
ment as  was  the  maintenance  of  the  great  issues  over  which 
the  American  Revolution  was  fought. 

The  plank  in  the  National  Republican  platform  of  1904 
was  one  Anglo-Saxon  protest  against  an  inferior  political 
relation  which  Democracy  would  perpetuate  upon  the  white 
men  of  the  North.  There  was  no  purpose  in  that  plank  to 
injure  or  degrade  the  South,  but  simply  to  restore  some  equality 
of  representation  between  the  sections.  It  has  been  cunningly 
characterized  by  the  Democracy  as  a  "nigger  plank,"  that  it 
may  have  an  odious  name.  Campaigning  by  epithet  is  not  a 
new  feature  in  politics.  Years  ago  the  Democracy  dubbed  as 
a  "Force  Bill"  a  national  election  law  which  had  served  for  a 
score  of  years  to  help  the  cause  of  honest  elections,  and  which 
had  rescued  New  York  City  from  its  corrupt  and  dominant 
"ring."  The  Democracy  called  it  a  "Force  Bill,"  that  it 
might  by  such  an  epithet  become  odious.  Similarly  to-day 
every  reference  to  the  unfair  elections  habitual  in  the  South 
is  characterized  as,  and  erroneously  taken  by  the  mass  of  the 
people  to  be,  a  reference  to  the  so-called  "nigger  problem." 

When  a  county,  for  instance,  containing  not  more  than 
2,500  white  voters  and  less  than  500  colored  voters,  makes 
an  election  return  of  6,500  majority  for  the  "Democratic" 
ticket,  it  is  no  "race  question"  that  creates  justifiable  indigna- 
tion against  the  offenders  responsible  for,  or  the  faction  that 
profits  by,  such  a  fraud.  Yet  this  is  no  hypothetical  case. 

An  effort  was  recently  made  in  one  State  Democratic  Con- 


130  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

vention  to  reduce  the  representation  of  Black  Belt  Counties 
in  the  State  and  District  Conventions  of  the  party,  and  to 
ask  that  this  also  be  done  in  the  State  Legislature.  This 
proposition  received  the  support  of  about  a  fifth  of  the  Con- 
vention, which  goes  to  show  that  one  set  of  white  men  at  least 
would  not  have  the  party  they  belong  to  always  submit  to  be 
held  in  a  condition  of  political  inferiority  by  another  set  of 
white  men.  As  one  man  puts  it,  "the  white  people  of  the  forty- 
five  counties  of  the  State  (Alabama)  will  not  much  longer 
submit  to  the  excessive  electoral  strength  of  the  twenty-five 
Black  Belt  counties,  nor  endure  the  Bossism  which  this  im- 
poses upon  the  whole  people.  .  .  ." 

"The  method  by  which  the  Democratic  oligarchy  fastens  its  hold  upon 
the  Democratic  machine  in  Alabama — and  the  condition  is  the  same  in  other 
Southern  States — is  the  basing  of  the  representation  in  the  conventions 
of  the  party  and  in  the  Legislature  upon  an  apportionment  embracing  the 
disfranchised  blacks  in  the  Black  Belt  counties  and  thereby  prohibiting 
the  control  of  the  party  or  the  Legislature  by  the  white  counties  of  the 
States.  Tallapoosa  County,  in  Alabama,  with  a  white  registered  vote  of 
4,006,  has  only  two  members  of  the  House  and  half  a  senator,  it  requiring 
a  district  of  this  and  one  other  white  county  to  name  a  senator;  while 
the  Black  Belt  county  of  Lowndes,  in  the  same  congressional  district, 
with  a  white  registred  vote  of  1,061,  has  two  members  in  the  House  and 
one  state  senator!  There  are  not  more  than  twenty -five  registered 
colored  voters  in  Tallapoosa  County  and  only  about  fifty  colored  registered 
voters  in  Lowndes.  In  Democratic  conventions  in  Alabama,  Tallapoosa 
County  has  seven  votes  and  Lowndes  has  eleven.  Thus  it  is  apparent  how 
and  why  the  strength  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Black  Belt  oligarchy,  even 
within  the  lines  of  the  boasted  party  of  'white  supremacy/  is  maintained."  * 

"Lowndes  County,  with  less  than  5,000  whites  and  more 
than  30,000  negroes,  has  one  senator  and  two  representatives 
in  the  legislature  of  Alabama;  while  Blount  County,  with 
21,338  whites  and  only  1,780  negroes,  with  a  registered  vote 
of  3,219,  has  only  ONE  representative  and  no  senator,  and 

*  J.  C.  Manning. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  131 

only  7  votes  in  a  Democratic  convention."  .  .  .  "The 
three  white  counties  of  Blount,  Cullman  and  Winston,  with 
nearly  50,000  whites  and  less  than  2,000  negroes,  with  a  regis- 
tered vote  of  8,756,  have  the  same  representation  in  the  State 
Senate,  to  wit,  one  senator,  as  the  Black  Belt  county  of  Lowndes, 
which  has  only  4,762  whites  and  30,889  negroes,  with  only 
1,080  registered  voters.  So  here  in  Alabama,  it  takes  about 
eight  white  men  in  a  white  county  to  equal  in  political  conven- 
tions and  in  State  legislatures  one  white  man  in  a  Black  Belt 
county. 

"Inequality  of  representation  obtains  in  other  counties  of 
Alabama  than  those  named  above.  It  is  not  quite  so  excessive 
as  in  the  case  of  the  counties  named.  It  stands  about  one 
white  man  in  the  black  belt  to  five  white  men  in  the  white 
counties." 

Men  of  independent  thought  in  the  South,  as  well  as  in  the 
North,  are  beginning  to  realize  that  "in  effect  and  in  practice 
Democracy  in  the  South  so  uses  the  race  issue  as  to  place  all 
political  power  in  the  hands  of  the  few."  The  Black  Belt 
leaders  of  the  Democracy  dominate  it.  The  result  is  that  the 
southern  section  of  the  country  is  for  all  practical  purposes 
governed  by  an  oligarchy  of  the  most  aristocratic  character, 
posing  as  a  Democracy,  and  practically  evading  or  defying  the 
national  power  affecting  civic  rights.  Is  not  this  condition 
of  affairs  partly  attributable  to  the  neglect  of  the  Republican 
party  leaders  to  take  steps  towards  remedying  electoral  in- 
equalities and  enforcing  the  Constitutional  amendments? 

A  prominent  Republican  *  in  a  speech  at  Faneuil  Hall, 
Boston,  in  May,  1907,  declared  that  the  present  administration, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  "has  done  more  to  strengthen 
the  Bourbon  Democracy  in  the  South  than  any  other  adminis- 
tration since  the  days  of  Buchanan,  not  excepting  even  Andrew 
Johnson."  The  extollation  of  leaders  of  the  Confederacy  by 

*  John  E.  Millholland. 


132  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

high  dignitaries  means  the  laudation  of  those  "who  strove  to 
keep  their  fellow-men  in  subjection  and  unspeakable  degrada- 
tion." Silence  about  the  practical  nullification  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  South,  of  the  "irreversible  guarantees  of  the  War 
Amendments,  particularly  of  the  Fifteenth,"  signifies  that  the 
oligarchy  is  to  be  allowed  a  free  hand  to  make  those  amend- 
ments a  dead  letter  there.  And  this  is  done  under  the  specious 
argument  that  the  colored  man  is  not  educated,  is  not  literate. 
What  is  the  truth? 

One  editor  thus  answers  the  question: 

"Let  his  instructors  answer.  His  vote  was  that  of  a  pupil. 
He  was  wholly  ignorant  in  this  respect  and  had  to  be  instructed. 
His  instructors  and  those  who  sullenly  refused  to  instruct  him 
are  equally  responsible  for  his  failings.  But  if  he  himself  is 
to  answer,  he  challenges  comparison  in  his  shortcomings,  as 
well  as  his  advancement  in  public  functions,  with  any  other 
political  class  or  race  in  the  same  interval  and  under  like 
conditions.  .  .  ." 

Reverting  to  the  address  at  Faneuil  Hall,  the  speaker  pro- 
ceeded to  say: 

"More  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  negro  voters  can  read  and 
write.  When  they  started  on  their  career  as  a  free  people 
forty  years  ago,  scarcely  one  per  cent,  was  literate.  As  a  record 
the  race's  progress  has  not  been  surpassed  in  history.  Yet 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  them  cannot  vote.  And  why? 

"Well,  the  great  academic  argument  against  allowing  the 
negro  to  exercise  his  constitutional  right  is  alleged  incapacity 
for  self-government,  the  common  basis  for  this  belief  being, 
as  you  know,  found  in  that  era  of  the  South  known  as  the 
carpet-bag  government,  a  period  that  has  been  more  misrepre- 
sented than  any  other  in  the  history  of  American  suffrage. 
The  accepted  version  of  it  is  that  in  consequence  of  their 
numerical  strength  and  under  Northern  white  leadership,  the 
black  voters  obtained  control  of  the  Southern  State  govern- 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  133 

merits  and  inaugurated  such  an  era  of  misgovernment  as  stunned 
the  nation  and  led  to  the  revolutionary   results   involved  in 
the  reassertion  of  the  white  man's  supremacy. " 
Alfred  Tennyson  wrote: 

"That  a  lie  which  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest  of  lies; 
That  a  lie  which  is  all  a  lie  may  be  met  with  and  fought  outright; 
But  a  lie  which  is  part  a  truth  is  a  harder  matter  to  fight." 

The  speaker  proceeded  to  say:  "This  is  the  case  before  us. 
It  is  true  that  there  was  during  this  regime  some  stealing; 
there  were  also  some  scandalous  proceedings:  the  newly  eman- 
cipated slaves,  tasting  for  the  first  time  the  sweets  of  power, 
ran  riot  and  forgot  the  obligations  of  conscience  and  duty. 
But  when  all  has  been  said  that  can  be  said  against  their  rule, 
when  every  count  in  the  indictment  has  been  fairly  examined, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  offences  committed  under  the  black 
man's  government  as  compared  with  those  confessedly  true 
under  the  rule  of  his  more  enlightened  white  brother,  are 
marvellously  mild.  I  go  further  and  assert  that  when  the 
facts,  have  been  correctly  stated  and  impartial  history  recorded, 
the  best  governments  the  Southern  States  had  up  to  that  time; 
yes,  or  since,  were  those  given  by  the  black  man  and  his  de- 
spised allies,  the  carpet-baggers  of  the  North,  many  of  whom 
were  as  brave,  as  patriotic,  as  honest  and  as  loyal  as  any  body 
of  men  who  have  ever  performed  the  rough  work  of  the  world."  * 

It  is  claimed  that  a  free  ballot  signifies  unlimited  corruption. 
Read  the  answer  in  England's  purification  of  her  politics.  To 
quote  from  Sir  Thomas  Erskine  May : 

"Political  morality  may  be  elevated  by  extending  liberties:  but  bribery 
has  everywhere  been  the  vice  of  growing  wealth.  .  ."  "The  first  election 
of  George  the  Third's  reign  was  signalized  by  unusual  excesses:"  A  seat 
in  Parliament  was  for  sale,  like  an  estate,  and  they  bought  it  without 
hesitation  or  misgiving.  ' '  Nor  were  they  regarded  with  much  favor  by 

*  See  Appendix  D,  for  more  of  this  forcible  speech. 


134  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  leaders  of  parties;  for  men  who  had  bought  their  seats — and  paid 
dearly  for  them — owed  no  allegiance  to  political  patrons."  "They  sought 
admission  to  Parliament,  not  so  much  with  a  view  to  a  political  career 
as  to  serve  mere  personal  ends,  to  forward  commercial  speculations,  to 
extend  their  connections  and  to  gratify  their  social  aspirations.  But 
their  independence  and  ambition  well  fitted  them  for  the  service  of  the 
court.  .  .  .  They  soon  ranged  themselves  among  the  king's  friends: 
and  thus  the  court  policy — which  was  otherwise  subversive  of  freedom — 
became  associated  with  parliamentary  corruption."  "When  the  return 
of  members  was  left  to  a  small  but  independent  body  of  electors,  their 
individual  votes  were  secured  by  bribery;  and  where  it  rested  with  pro- 
prietors or  corporations,  the  seat  was  purchased  outright."  Gatton,  e.g., 
was  sold  for  £75,000.  Of  the  658  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
487  were  returned  by  nomination  .  .  .  not  more  than  one-third  of  the 
House  were  the  free  choice  of  the  limited  bodies  of  electors  then  intrusted 
with  the  franchise.  Representatives  holding  their  seats  by  a  general 
system  of  corruption  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  themselves  corrupt.  What 
they  had  bought,  they  were  but  too  ready  to  sell.  And  how  glittering 
the  prizes  offered  as  the  price  of  their  services!  Peerages,  baronetcies, 
patronage  and  court  favor  for  the  rich — places,  pensions  and  bribes  for 
the  needy.  All  that  the  government  had  to  bestow  they  could  command. 
.  .  .  Another  instrument  of  corruption  was  found  in  the  raising  of 
money  for  the  public  service.  In  March,  1763,  Lord  Bute  contracted  a 
loan  of  three  millions  and  a  half;  and  having  distributed  shares  among  his 
friends, — the  scrip  immediately  rose  to  a  premium  of  11  per  cent.  .  .  . 
Here  the  country  sustained  a  loss  of  £385,000.  .  .  .  Stock  jobbing 
became  the  fashion;  and  many  members  of  Parliament  were  notoriously 
concerned  in  it.  Again,  in  1781,  .  .  .  a  loan  of  £12,000,000  was  con- 
tracted to  defray  the  cost  of  the  disastrous  American  war.  .  .  Its 
terms  were  so  favorable  that  suddenly  the  scrip  rose  nearly  11  per  cent. 
It  was  computed  by  Mr.  Fox  that  a  profit  of  £900,000  would  be  derived 
from  the  loan;  and  by  others  that  half  of  the  loan  was  subscribed  for  by 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  Rockingham  eaid,  "The  loan 
was  made  merely  for  the  purpose  of  corrupting  the  Parliament  to  support 
a  wicked,  impolitic  and  ruinous  war." 

Now  as  to  the  electorate.  In  Scotland  in  1831,  the  total  number  of 
county  voters  did  not  exceed  2,500;  and  the  constituencies  of  the  66 
boroughs  amounted  to  1,440.  .  .  .  The  county  of  Argyll,  with  a  popu- 
lation of  100,000,  had  but  115  electors;  Caithness,  with  36,000,  contained 
47  freeholders.  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow,  the  two  first  cities  of  Scotland, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  135 

had  each  a  constituency  of  33  persons.  ...  A  great  kingdom,  with 
more  than  two  millions  of  people — intelligent,  industrious  and  peaceable 
— was  virtually  disfranchised.  .  .  .  According  to  a  statement  made 
by  the  Duke  of  Richmond  in  1780,  not  more  than  6,000  men  returned  a 
clear  majority  of  the  British  House  of  Commons.  ...  It  was  alleged 
in  the  petition  of  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  People  (presented  in 
1793)  that  84  individuals  absolutely  returned  157  members  to  parliament. 
.  .  .  and  that  a  majority  of  the  House  were  returned  by  154  patrons. .  . . 
The  glaring  defects  and  vices  of  the  representative  system  which  have 
now  been  exposed — the  restricted  and  unequal  franchise,  the  bribery 
of  a  limited  electoral  body,  and  the  corruption  of  the  representatives 
themselves — formed  the  strongest  arguments  for  Parliamentary  reform. 
.  .  .  The  theory  of  an  equal  representation  had,  in  the  course  of  ages, 
been  entirely  subverted.  .  .  .  The  Reform  bill  of  1832  supplied  the 
cure.  "It  was,"  says  May,  "a  measure,  at  once  bold,  comprehensive, 
moderate  and  constitutional.  Popular:  but  not  democratic: — it  extended 
liberty,  without  hazarding  revolution.  In  1850  the  representation  of  the 
country  was  reconstructed  on  a  wider  basis.  Large  classes  had  been 
admitted  to  the  franchise:  and  the  House  of  Commons  represented  more 
freely  the  interests  and  political  sentiments  of  the  people.  The  reformed 
Parliament,  accordingly,  has  been  more  liberal  and  progressive  in  its  policy 
than  the  Parliament  of  old,  more  vigorous  and  active;  more  susceptible 
to  the  influence  of  public  opinion'  and  more  secure  in  the  confidence  of 
the  people." 

The  Corrupt  Practices  Prevention  Act  of  1854  (17  and  18 
Vic.,  c.  102),  Corrupt  Practices  Act  of  1883,  and  the  legislation 
that  brought  about  the  assimilation  of  the  borough  and  county 
franchise,  have  done  away  with  many  of  the  disabilities  and 
inequalities  of  the  electorate  and  produced  a  greater  purity 
in  elections,  so  that  the  old  bribery  and  corruption  has  been 
almost  entirely  eliminated. 

Here  let  us  leave  the  history  of  English  political  corruption 
and  the  remedy  which  was  found  in  a  fairer  representation  of 
the  people.  In  truth,  we  might  well  have  left  it  sooner — if 
not  altogether;  for  it  is  likely  to  be  said  that  all  of  this  is  noth- 
ing to  the  purpose.  But  it  is  instructive.  The  South  has 
before  her  the  practical  problem  of  dealing  with  some  millions 


136  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

of  negroes,  to  the  solution  of  which  it  will  be  said  that  the 
experience  of  the  English  people  furnishes  no  aid. 

But  the  alarming  numerical  diminution  of  the  white  electorate, 
as  exhibited  by  the  election  returns,  indicate  a  possible  parallel 
of  absence  of  interest  or  participation  in  public  affairs. 


There  is  in  Great  Britain  a  class  known  as  the  landed  class 
or  the  landed  gentry.  Many  of  the  nobility  and  titled  people 
belong  to  it,  although  in  many  cases  the  landed  families,  par- 
ticularly in  some  counties,  are  older  in  ancestry  and  richer 
and  more  powerful  than  the  hereditary  peerage.  The  landed 
class  has  always  been  strongly  represented  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  has  largely  dominated  and  controlled  legisla- 
tion, fiscal,  railway  and  municipal.  The  large  estates  have 
parted  with  rights  of  way  to  the  railroad  companies,  without 
which  rights  of  way  Parliament  would  not  have  granted  the 
necessary  charters.  The  actual  value  to-day  of  land  the 
rights  of  which  were  so  acquired  by  the  railroads  from  members 
of  Parliament  represents  at  least  one-fifteenth  of  the  paid  up 
capital  of  the  railroads.  In  this  way,  and  by  other  secured 
interests,  the  landowners  control  the  English  railroads,  and  so  can 
obtain  or  cause  to  be  thrown  out,  as  it  suits  their  interests, 
legislation  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons.  This 
passing  or  "killing"  of  measures  goes  on  usually  without  the 
public  knowing  much  about  it.  Occasionally  there  are  cases 
where  public  opinion  prevents  the  landed  class  from  carrying 
matters  with  too  high  a  hand;  but  for  the  most  part  the  domi- 
nance they  wield  is  supreme  and  unopposed. 


Once  more  we  must  consider,  then,  the  actual  situation  in 
this  country  to-day. 


X 

"The  law  of  human  progress,  what  is  it  but  the  moral  law?  Just  as  social 
adjustments  promote  justice,  just  as  they  acknowledge  the  equality  of 
right  between  man  and  man,  just  as  they  insure  to  each  the  perfect  liberty 
which  is  bounded  only  by  the  equal  liberty  of  every  other,  must  civilization 
advance.  Just  as  they  fail  in  this,  must  advancing  civilization  come  to  a 
halt  and  recede." — Henry  George. 

As  was  well  said  by  President  Harrison  in  1890,  "equality 
or  representation  and  the  parity  of  electors  should  be  main- 
tained, or  everything  that  is  valuable  in  our  system  of  govern- 
ment is  lost.  The  qualifications  of  an  elector  must  be  sought 
in  the  law,  not  in  the  opinions,  prejudices  or  fears  of  any  class, 
however  powerful.  The  path  of  the  elector  to  the  ballot-box 
must  be  free  from  the  ambush  of  fear  and  the  enticements  of 
fraud,  and  the  count  so  true  and  open  that  none  shall  gainsay  it." 

In  the  same  President's  Annual  Message,    1980,  he  said: 

"Nothing  just  now  is  more  important  than  to  provide  every 
guaranty  for  an  absolutely  fair  and  free  choice,  by  an  equal 
suffrage  within  the  respective  States,  of  all  the  officers  of  the 
national  government,  whether  that  suffrage  is  exercised  directly, 
as  in  the  choice  of  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
or  indirectly,  as  in  the  choice  of  Senators  and  Electors  for 
President.  ...  If  I  were  called  upon  to  declare  wherein 
our  chief  national  danger  lies,  I  should  say,  without  hesitation, 
in  the  overthrow  of  majority  control  by  the  suppression  or 
perversion  of  the  popular  suffrage.  That  there  is  a  real  danger 
here  all  men  agree.  .  .  ." 

There  never  was  a  time  when  morally,  politically  and  law- 
fully such  processes  of  making  the  constitutional  guarantees 


138  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

effective  would  have  progressed  and  would  have  been  more 
certainly  and  effectually  accomplished,  than  after  the  over- 
whelming electoral  victory  in  1904  on  a  national  platform 
pledging  the  Republican  party  to  that  purpose.  Never  in 
political  history  has  there  been  a  more  ignoble  and  abject 
abandonment  of  duty  than  the  Republican  failure  in  this 
respect  to  redeem  the  party  pledge.  It  is  not  strange  that  a 
moral  effect  of  such  conduct  should  be  a  sectional  and  local 
paralysis  of  national  supremacy  and  national  power  in  all 
matters  protecting  the  civic  equality  of  individuals  as  guaran- 
teed by  the  United  States  Government.  Nor  is  it  strange  that 
the  political  leaders  who  have  assisted  materially  in  this  deg- 
radation should  have  succeeded  in  suppressing  or  extinguishing 

NUP 

from  Southern  political  life  the  more  liberal  and  progressive 
thinkers,  speakers  and  writers  who  among  them  are  occasionally 
heard  from. 

Probably  a  fair  though  deplorable  statement  of  the  attitude 
of  some  present  leaders  in  the  Republican  party,  or,  to  speak 
more  exactly,  of  the  followers  among  the  remnant  that  once 
claimed  to  lead — and  are  leaving  dubious  tones  for  their  suc- 
cessors— is  found  in  a  sort  of  valedictory  speech  delivered  by  ex- 
Senator  John  M.  Spooner,  in  the  Senate  on  January  15,  1907. 

The  mournful  feature  of  that  speech  is  the  speaker's  announce- 
ment that  he  is  glad  that  a  measure  he  had  urged  years  ago, 
to  enforce  the  Constitutional  Amendments  had  not  passed; 
and  in  that  he  assumes,  but  produces  no  evidence  in  support 
of  his  assumption,  that  the  true  interests  of  the  country  have 
thereby  been  promoted!  Indeed,  on  the  contrary,  he  himself 
portrays  a  distortion  of  the  just  equilibrium  between  the 
sections;  and  after  stating  an  impregnable  case  of  national 
importance,  unjustifiably  seems  to  surrender  its  disposition  to 
the  vicious  issues  of  local  determination.  This  is  what  he  says: 

"  I  realize  as  well  as  any  man  in  the  North  the  complicated  and  trouble- 
some and,  perhaps,  in  some  ways  dangerous  situation  as  to  both  races 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  139 

in  the  South.  I  am  not  able  to  say  that  in  dealing  with  the  Southern 
States  at  the  end  of  the  war  measures  were  not  adopted  which,  from  the 
standpoint  of  to-day,  might  not  better,  in  some  aspects  of  it,  have  been 
pretermitted.  In  the  situation  as  it  presented  itself  to  the  Congress  of 
Northern  men,  fresh  from  the  struggle  to  suppress  the  Union,  it  was,  of 
course,  inevitable. 

"It  is  always  dangerous  to  confer  the  suffrage  upon  a  mass  of  people 
unfitted  by  education  for  its  exercise.  I  do  not  intend  to  advert,  except 
by  a  word,  to  the  fact  that,  as  I  understood  it  then,  and  as  I  understand 
it  now,  the  suffrage  was  not  secured  to  the  colored  man  in  a  party  interest, 
but  to  protect  him,  by  giving  the  ballot  as  a  weapon  of  defense,  against 
codes,  which  you  will  find  collated  to  some  extent  only  in  the  dissenting 
opinion  of  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  in  the  Slaughterhouses  cases  (109  U.  S.,  36), 
codes  which  were  thought  in  the  North  practically  to  repudiate  the  pledge 
contained  in  Abraham  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation,  afterwards 
written  by  the  people  into  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

"  I  am  far  from  forgetting  the  difficulties  which  then  beset  the  Southern 
people. 

"It  was  difficult  for  Southern  men  to  realize,  when  the  Confederate  flags 
were  furled  and  laid  away  and  they  returned  to  their  homes,  that  the 
black  people  whom  they  had  left  at  home  as  slaves,  had  become  when  they 
next  looked  upon  their  faces  free  men.  It  was  a  sudden  dislocation  of  a 
long-continued  status,  and  of  course  it  took  time  to  adjust  their  relations 
to  it. 

"We  once  attempted — I  did  my  part  of  it,  for  which  I  have  never 
apologized,  nor  will  I — to  safeguard,  in  the  interest  of  the  people  at  large, 
the  right  of  the  colored  man  to  vote  in  accordance  with  the  constitutional 
amendments.  That  bill  did  not  pass.  I  have  been  glad  it  did  not  pass, 
although  I  did  honestly  all  that  I  could  to  secure  its  passage.  That  it 
did  not  pass  has  been  better,  I  think,  for  the  white  men  of  the  South  and 
infinitely  better  for  the  colored  men  of  the  South,  where  the  Anglo-Saxon 
and  the  negro  race  live  side  by  side  and  will  continue  so  to  live,  doubtless, 
as  long  as  this  government  lasts. 

"They  can  live  in  peace,  I  hope  and  pray  and  believe.  It  will  require 
the  utmost  of  patience  and  calmness  and  justice  on  the  part  of  the  white 
people  of  the  South.  The  colored  men  are  not  cowards ;  they  are  ambitious. 
They  are  human  beings;  they  were  born  in  this  country;  they  were  made 
by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

"In  respect  of  the  suffrage,  which  the  Southern  States  have  adjusted 
to  suit  themselves,  their  administration  of  it  has  been  left  without  Con- 


140  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

gressional  interference,  even  without  recent  agitation.  Of  course,  our 
people  feel  that  the  just  constitutional  equilibrium  between  the  States 
has  been  distorted  and  disarranged  because  of  the  situation.  The  South 
has  a  large  representation  in  the  Electoral  College  and  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  because  of  the  colored  vote.  The  vote  has  been  decreased 
in  one  way  and  another,  but  the  representation  has  remained. 

"Senators  will  bear  me  witness  that  it  is  a  good  many  years  since  this 
subject  has  been  discussed  at  all  on  this  side  of  the  Chamber.  When  I 
first  came  to  the  Senate  is  was  often  debated  with  a  violence  which  is 
almost  always  inseparable  from  it.  Silence  upon  it  has  not  been  a  surrender 
except  in  this  way,  that  it  has  come  to  be  felt  by  our  people  at  large  that 
the  delicate  and  difficult  problem  down  there  CAN  BE  BEST  SETTLED  WITHOUT 

AGITATION  FROM  WITHOUT. 

' '  Now,  Mr.  President,  I  think  the  Fourteenth  Amendement  of  the  Con- 
stitution, which  makes  the  colored  man  and  all  persons  born  in  this  country 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  which  guarantees  to  them  equality  before  the 
law,  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,  and  those  rights  of  liberty,  conscience, 
property,  to  which  all  men  are  entitled  in  any  decent  government,  must 
live.  I  have  no  notion  that  the  great  body  of  the  people  of  any  section  of 
this  country  think  otherwise.  The  law  must  be  equally  a  shield  for  all 
entitled  to  its  protection;  and  I  feel  sometimes  when  I  recall  the  con- 
versations I  had  years  ago  with  some  splendid  and  chivalrous  ex-Confeder- 
ate soldiers  who  have  gone  from  this  Chamber,  and  some  still  here,  upon 
this  difficult  and  sensitive  subject  in  the  South,  that  it  requires  more  than 
any  other  problem  in  history  patience,  considerateness,  and  justice  on 
the  part  of  the  leaders  of  Southern  thought,  instead  of  vehemence  and 
vituperation." 

Senator  Spooner  said  further:  "If  my  recollection  serves  me  aright,  I 
have  heard  great  denunciation  at  times  against  the  legislation  of  Congress 
in  the  reconstruction  acts  and  in  various  acts  which  affected  sections,  and 
in  the  light  of  to-day  we  can  all  see  action  by  the  Congress  which  was 
unwise."  * 

Now  these  views,  while  purporting  to  represent  the  average 
sentiments  of  the  experienced  legislative  expert  in  compromises 
for  the  sake  of  securing  projected  enactments,  would  probably 
not,  if  put  to  the  test,  represent  the  fundamental  beliefs  of  the 
great  body  of  thoughtful  Republicans  reared  in  the  history, 
the  traditions,  the  principles,  the  high  ideals  and  patriotic 

*  Senator  Spooner's  Speech,  Cong.  Rec.,  Jan.  19,  1907,  p.  1399,  p.  1390. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  141 

accomplishments  of  the  Republican  party.  That  party  at 
heart  still  believes,  as  was  expressed  by  Mr.  Elaine,  that  the 
Thirteenth,  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Constitutional  Amend- 
ments will  be  "vindicated  and  enforced  in  letter  and  in  spirit."* 

That  prediction  thus  far  fails  of  fulfilment  because  of  the 
alliances — like  those  in  the  declining  days  of  slavery — of  Northern 
capital  with  the  Southern  oligarchy,  and  because  of  the  nullifica- 
tion in  many  sections  of  the  Constitutional  Amendments 
which  are  results  of  the  war.  This  nullification  exists,  and  is 
a  fact,  however  it  may  be  suppressed  or  obscured  by  specious 
technicalities. 

Ever  since  the  second  Cleveland  Administration  when  the 
Democracy  had  control  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  a  national 
election  law  having  already  failed  of  enactment,  a  vigorous 
movement  has  been  conducted  to  abridge,  deny  or  destroy 
the  civil  and  political  rights  of  the  colored  people  in  the  South,  f 
The  full  force  of  this  insidious  and  aggressive  propaganda  is 
being  felt  by  the  present  generation,  who  see  at  first  hand, 
without  stopping  to  enquire  how  it  came  about,  a  practical 
nullification  of  the  War  Amendments. 

That  this  is  so  may  be  abundantly  proved.  A  leading 
Southern  Senator,  already  quoted  in  these  pages,  in  August, 
1906,  at  a  Spiritualist-camp-Sunday-afternoon  meeting  de- 
clared that  "the  people  of  the  South  considered  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments  as  mere  pieces  of  paper  and  a  bit 
wasted  ink." 

The  New  York  World  recently  called  attention  to  the  action 
of  the  Florida  Legislature  in  which  it  was  proposed  to  nullify 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  by  a  joint  resolu- 
tion! The  World  article  ran,  in  part,  like  this: 

*  Vol.  II,  p.  421,  "Twenty  Years  in  Congress." 

t  A  Senator  (Patterson  of  Colorado)  said:  ".  .  .  There  is  rapidly  being  organized 
in  the  South  a  movement  to  demand  that  the  North  unite  with  the  South  in  the  repeal 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  practical  return  of  the  negroes  of  the  country  to  a 
condition  of  peonage."  Cong.  Rec.  1060  (Jan.  12,  1907).  See  Appendix  N. 


142  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"The  Florida  Legislature  disapproves  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  to  the  United  States  Constitution  and  proposes  to  nullify 
them  by  the  convenient  device  of  a  joint  resolution.  The  wonder  is  that 
in  all  these  forty  years  nobody  ever  before  thought  of  this  simple  ex- 
pedient for  disfranchising  the  negro.  It  seems  so  much  easier  than  pass- 
ing roundabout  laws  with  grandfather  clauses  and  educational  tests. 

"South  Carolina  attempted  merely  to  nullify  certain  acts  of  Congress. 
The  Florida  method  is  more  thorough-going.  An  unconstitutional  Con- 
stitution has  very  great  advantages.  Every  State  from  time  to  time  can 
select  such  parts  of  it  as  it  may  choose  to  obey  and  discard  the  rest  as  offen- 
sive to  local  prejudices.  .  .  . 

"One  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  disfranchisement  of  the  negro 
by  Southern  States  has  been  the  threatened  reduction  of  their  representa- 
tion in  Congress.  But  these  loose  constructionists  in  Florida  have  guarded 
against  that  danger.  They  abolish  the  whole  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment. While  they  were  at  it  they  might  have  made  their  position  im- 
pregnable by  abolishing  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  as  created  by 
the  United  States  Constitution!" 

In  the  debate  in  the  Florida  Legislature  on  this  question  it 
was  contended  that  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ments were  not  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  it  was  proposed  to  bring  a  test  case  before  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court. 

Now,  the  Constitution  is  the  foundation  upon  which  our 
government  rests;  and  to  build  on  the  Constitution  is  to  have 
a  basis  of  rock.  Building  otherwise  is  to  erect  a  structure  on 
sand! 

The  protection  of  the  Constitution  (or  law)  is  what  is  wanted 
in  the  South,  where  in  many  localities  it  is  a  dead  letter  because 
not  supported  and  backed  up  by  public  sentiment. 

A  vigorous  propaganda  is  being  carried  on  to-day  for  "our 
system,"  corresponding  to  the  propaganda  of  Calhoun's  allies 
for  "our  doctrine." 

It  required  a  concerted  and  well-directed  movement  extend- 
ing over  several  years  to  lead  up  to  a  declaration  of  nullifica- 
tion of  Federal  authority  by  the  political  adherents  of  Calhoun, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  143 

It  was  no  easy  task  to  persuade  those  attached  to  the  Union 
of  the  United  States  to  become  willing  to  sunder  those  valued 
bonds  for  a  theory  that  offered  in  exchange  no  concrete  ad- 
vantage. There  was  a  vague  idea  also  that  party  loyalty  did 
not  necessitate  national  disloyalty.  Indeed,  in  various  public 
assemblies  the  ordinance  of  nullification,  which  provided  for 
forcible  resistance  to  Federal  authority,  was  formally  denounced 
and  the  nullification  party  notified  that  "whilst  the  powers  of 
resistance  are  left  to  us  we  will  never  submit"  to  be  forced  into 
defending  nullification. 

The  professions  and  pledged  declarations  of  almost  every 
public  man  engaged  in  the  nullification  movement  were  those 
of  deep  devotion  and  loyalty  to  the  Union.  In  no  other  way 
could  the  leaders  have  persuaded  their  constituents  to  create 
the  ordinance  of  nullification  which  was  the  culmination  of 
their  successful  propaganda,  of  which  Mr.  Calhoun  exultingly 
said: 

"In  the  short  space  of  four  years  our  doctrine  has  overspread 
our  own  State,  and  is  already  rapidly  taking  root  beyond  our 
limits." 

As  the  result  of  the  propaganda  against  the  War  Amend- 
ments now  actively  continued  for  several  years,  Southern 
statesmen  are  making  to-day  corresponding  vauntings.  The 
clarion  tones  and  virile  Proclamation  of  President  Jackson 
reformed  public  opinion  and  set  it  upon  right  lines.  But 
without  that  Proclamation  the  subtle  propaganda  of  "our 
doctrine"  that  had  insidiously  brought  about  "in  the  short  (?) 
space  of  four  years"  attempts  by  force  to  execute  the  ordinance 
of  nullification,  might  then  have  produced  a  crisis,  instead  of 
the  momentous  crisis  that  developed  twenty-eight  years 
later. 

The  poisonous  propaganda  of  to-day  should  likewise  be 
inundated  by  a  similar  ocean  of  public  opinion,  that  shall  be 
in  consonance  with  the  progress  of  the  age  in  the  true  spirit 


144  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

of  democracy  regardless  of  either  official  apathy  or  assistance 
and  irrespective  of  adequate  Federal  legislation  or  control. 

It  has  been  well  said  by  one  interested  in  the  problems  of 
to-day : 

"We  must  create  a  public  sentiment,  strong  enough  to  enforce  the  law. 
My  opinion  is,  the  most  effective  way  to  accomplish  this  is  through  wise 
but  ceaseless  agitation.  Agitate,  agitate,  agitate,  until  the  great  American 
conscience  is  aroused  to  the  terrible  injustice  being  perpetrated  upon  10,- 
000,000  of  its  citizens.  All  reforms  are  brought  about  through  agitation. 
Meanwhile  there  is,  of  course,  no  objection  to  a  man  making  himself  as 
comfortable  materially  as  he  can.  No  sane  man  opposes  making  honest 
progress  along  all  lines  of  endeavor.  The  objection  is  to  making  'material 
independence '  a  god ;  viz. :  the  thing  to  be  desired  above  all  else ;  giving  it 
the  emphasis  in  our  attempt  at  race-building.  Deep  in  our  hearts  be  it 
implanted,  that  nothing  on  earth  is  equal  to  freedom.  Liberty  or  death! " 

An  illustration  of  the  prevailing  adverse  temper,  however, 
is  exhibited  by  an  article  in  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier, 
when  it  had  occasion  to  refer  to  the  National  Convention  of 
the  Afro-American  Council  about  to  be  held  in  New  York  in 
October,  1906.  It  had  been  provided  that  one  of  the  special 
subjects  which  would  receive  attention  would  be  to  arrange 
for  a  test  case  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
regarding  the  disfranchisement  laws  of  the  Southern  States. 
This  representative  newspaper  commented  upon  the  proposal 
by  saying  that  if  it  be  determined  in  favor  of  the  Convention 
and  its  advisers  the  result  in  the  Supreme  Court  "will  not  be 
accepted  by  the  white  people  of  the  South  as  a  final  settlement 
of  the  question.  .  .  .  The  white  people  have  made  up 
their  minds  that  they  will  not  submit  to  negro  domination. 
That  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter." 

What  "negro  domination"  has  to  do  with  the  matter  is  not 
explained. 

"  The  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  recent  constitutions  of  the 
South,  and  especially  in  the  State  of  Alabama,  is  hardly  open  to  discussion. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  145 

It  was  boldly  asserted  by  the  f  ramers  of  the  recent  Constitution  of  Alabama, 
in  convention  assembled,  that  they  were  enacting  legislation  at  the  time 
for  the  purpose  of  evading  and  annulling  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to 
the  Federal  Constitution.  They  denounced  that  amendment  as  an  outrage 
upon  the  rights  of  Southern  white  men,  and  proceeded  to  defy  its  provisions 
and  trample  them  under  their  feet. 

"The  convention  being  composed  entirely  of  white  men,  elected  upon 
a  party  pledge  that  no  white  man  should  be  disfranchised,  no  matter  how 
ignorant  or  poor,  or  what  his  character,  which  leaves  nobody  to  be  dis- 
franchised except  the  negroes,  how  can  there  be  any  question  raised  as  to 
the  purpose  and  outcome  of  such  a  convention? 

"The  convention,  however,  was  composed  mostly  of  lawyers  of  learning 
and  ability,  and  they  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  shaping  up  the  matter  of 
nullification  and  disfranchisement  to  make  it  appear  fair  on  its  face,  and 
surrounding  it  with  sufficient  technicalities  to  furnish  loop  holes  for  the 
courts. 


"The  new  Constitution  of  Alabama,  and  I  think  the  same 
is  true  of  all  the  other  Southern  States,  is  so  framed  that  the 
disfranchisement  of  the  negro  is  actually  accomplished  by 
the  work  of  the  registrars  or  other  officers  charged  with  the 
duty  of  registering  the  electors  of  the  State.  The  registrars 
are  mere  puppets  of  the  party  in  power,  and  if  directed  so  to 
do  by  the  political  bosses,  could  and  would  accomplish  the 
utter  disfranchisement  of  all  or  any  set  of  negroes  they  de- 
sired, regardless  of,  and  without  any  provision  of,  the  State 
Constitution  authorizing  it,  and  would  not  heed  in  the  slightest 
degree  the  rights  of  the  black  men,  asserted  under  the  Federal 
Constitution.  To  the  registrars  the  Southern  States  are 
sovereign,  and  the  white  man  in  the  South  still  more  sovereign, 
the  Federal  Constitution  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

"So  that  the  real  kernel  of  this  whole  question  is  how  to 
find  a  way  to  compel  the  South  to  respect  and  observe  the 
provisions  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution." * 

*  From  Report  of  Speech  by  Mr.  Wilford  H.  Smith. 
10 


146  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Those  who  practice  nullification  in  the  South  to-day  while 
posing  as  statesmen  belong  to  the  class  spoken  of  in  Calhoun's 
time  as  "nullifiers,"  who  avowed  and  defended  nullification. 
President  Jackson  is  reputed  to  have  said  of  them:  "These 
men  are  not  honest.  Their  true  purpose  is  the  downfall  of 
the  Union.  Their  present  pretext  is  the  tariff.  Next  time  it 
will  be  slavery."  Referring  to  their  motives  and  propositions 
President  Jackson  was  unconsciously  prophetic.  He  further 
might  have  alluded  to  the  more  subtle  and  deceptive  nullifiers 
of  the  present  day,  when  he  said: 

"I  consider  the  power  to  annul  a  law  of  the  United  States 
assumed  by  one  State  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  the 
Union,  contradicted  expressly  by  the  Constitution,  unauthorized 
by  either  its  letter  or  its  spirit,  inconsistent  with  every  principle 
on  which  it  was  founded,  and  destructive  of  the  great  object 
for  which  it  was  founded." 

Respect  for  the  law  until  it  is  repealed  is  the  highest  duty 
of  every  self-governing  people. 

And  yet  what  is  the  attitude  regarding  this  practical  nullifica- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  by  some  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party  who  are  competing  for  its  highest  honors? 

The  present  Secretary  of  War  is  reported  to  have  said  in  an 
address,  delivered  at  the  Twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  Tuskegee, 
on  The  Three  War  Amendments,  that  the  Thirteenth  and 
Fourteenth  Amendments  should  be  enforced;  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  deal  with  the  colored  race  as  follows: 

"The  only  hope  of  the  negro  race  was  economic  independ- 
ence"; that  it  was  "  a  people  not  fit  to  enjoy  or  maintain  a  higher 
education.  .  .  .  Primary  and  industrial  education  was 
the  chief  need  of  the  colored  race." 

With  regard  to  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  the  speaker  ad- 
mitted that  it  had  probably  been  violated,  but  thought  that 
we  ought  to  acquiesce  in  the  discriminatory  laws  and  look 
forward  to  the  day  when  the  colored  race  would  be  able  to 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  147 

return  to  the  polls  because  of  educational  and  property  qualifica- 
tions.* 

He  took  the  position  that  "  the  very  desire  to  avoid  fraudulent 
methods  which  was  wont  to  overcome  the  colored  vote  in  the 
South,  itself  indicates  a  turn  for  the  better!" 

Here  is  a  double  delusion.  In  the  first  place,  time  will 
destroy  the  dream  and  expose  the  fallacy  that  prejudice  against 
the  negro  will  abate  as  he  rises.  The  ballot  is  the  most  powerful 
weapon  against  race  prejudice.  There  was  not  nearly  as  much 
of  it  when  the  negro  had  the  ballot.  Nothing  will  compel 
respect  from  Southern  officials  but  the  possession  of  the  ballot. 
This,  and  not  industrial  combination,  will  save^the  colored  men 
of  the  South  from  the  negligence  of  governors,  the  cowardice 
of  sheriffs  and  policemen,  the  knavery  of  school-boards,  the 
unfairness  of  juries  and  the  subserviency  of  courts.  The 
ballot  alone  will  bring  the  white  men  of  the  South  to  respect 
the  colored  men,  as  happened  forty  years  ago. 

The  conditions  then  and  now  find  contrast  in  a  considerate 
appeal  by  the  Democratic  convention  in  1867  addressed  "to 
the  colored  people  of  South  Carolina,"  in  the  course  of  which 
it  says: 

"Your  present  power  must  sureiy  and  soon  will  pass  from  you.  It  is 
therefore  a  dangerous  tool  that  you  are  handling.  Your  leaders,  both 
white  and  black,  are  using  your  votes  for  nothing  but  their  individual 
gain.  .  .  We  therefore  urge  you,  by  all  the  ties  of  our  former  relations, 
still  strong  and  binding  in  thousands  of  cases,  by  a  common  Christianity 
and  by  the  mutual  welfare  of  our  two  races,  whom  Providence  has  thrown 
together,  to  beware  of  the  course  on  which  your  leaders  are  urging  you 
in  a  blind  folly  which  will  surely  ruin  both  you  and  them.  .  .  .  Re- 
member that  your  race  has  nothing  to  gain  and  everything  to  lose  if  you 
invite  that  prejudice  of  race  which  since  the  world  was  made  has  ever 
driven  the  weaker  tribe  to  the  wall." 

*  These  views  were  reiterated  and  amplified  by  the  same  speaker  at  Lexington,  Ky., 
on  August  22,  1907,  and  his  language  is  taken  by  Southern  men  as  an  approval  of  the 
South's  attitude  toward  the  negroes,  and  of  the  Southern  disfranchisement  provisions 
for  being  "both  wise  and  proper." 


148  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

To-day  how  are  the  colored  people  spoken  of  by  those  in 
high  places? 

Before  the  Republicans  of  North  Carolina  at  Greensboro, 
Secretary  Taft  recently  referred  to  the  colored  citizens  as  "a 
class  of  persons  so  ignorant  and  so  subject  to  oppression  and 
misleading  that  they  are  merely  political  children,  not  having 
the  mental  stature  of  manhood." 

He  glossed  over  disfranchisement  by  saying: 

"CONCEDING  THAT  THE  LAWS  now  in  force  in  this  State  and 
other  parts  of  the  South  were  intended,  either  by  their  terms 
or  by  their  MODE  OF  EXECUTION,  TO  EXCLUDE  THE  IGNORANT 

COLORED  VOTER  FROM  THE  FRANCHISES  WITH  RIGOR,  AND  TO 
ALLOW  THE  IGNORANT  WHITE  VOTER,  THOUGH  EQUALLY  UNFITTED 

FOR  THE  FRANCHISE,  TO  EXERCISE  IT,  I  do  not  think  that  this 
makes  a  hopeless  situation  for  the  colored  man  or  the  political 
power  that  he  may  in  the  FUTURE  exercise." 

A  leading  Southern  Democratic  Editor  recently  said: 

"The  three  last  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  I  declared 
to  be  the  actual  and  final  Treaty  of  Peace  between  the  North 
and  the  South."  * 

This  "Treaty  of  Peace"  is  either  to  be  respected  or  abrogated. 

The  aim  of  the  oligarchy  still  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  to 
keep  the  negro  down  socially  and  politically.  Political  dislike 
is  really  a  potent  factor,  as  the  colored  vote,  when  cast,  has 
usually  been  cast  for  the  Republican  party.  Writing  in  1905 
a  prominent  colored  business  man  in  the  city  of  Mobile  expressed 
his  views  that  a  reduction  of  the  Southern  representation  would 
help  the  political  independence  of  the  colored  men,  and  that 
the  crime  of  disfranchisement  was  committed  more  to  hurt 
the  Republican  party  than  to  hurt  the  negro  who,  politically 
speaking,  is  persecuted  more  because  he  is  usually  a  Republican 
than  because  he  is  a  negro. 

*  Henry  Watterson,  at  Louisville,  June  14,  1907. 


XI 

"It  is  certain  that  democracy  annoys  one  part  of  the  community  and 
that  aristocracy  oppresses  another  part." — De  Tocqueville. 
*». 

In  declaring,  as  Mr.  Taft  did  at  Tuskegee  recently,  that  the 
only  hope  of  the  colored  race  was  in  "economic  independence," 
he  overlooked  the  most  insistent  warning  of  all  history,  that 
any  people  that  grow  materially  rich  while  remaining  intel- 
lectually and  spiritually  poor,  sow  the  seeds  of  their  own  decay 
and  dissolution.  In  all  the  empires  throughout  the  world's 
history  this  lesson  of  prosperity  in  things  material  and  starva- 
tion in  things  spiritual  and  uplifting  has  preceded  the  downfall 
of  rulers  and  ruled.  An  age  of  gold  in  which  intellect  is  starved 
is  a  sure  and  certain  forerunner  of  decadence  of  men  and  of 
nations. 

Does  the  South  in  dealing  with  the  colored  race  believe  that 
it  can  with  impunity  ignore  the  teachings  of  history,  or  that 
exceptions  in  its  case  will  be  made?  Human  experience  belies 
this,  for  nature's  laws  are  inexorable. 

Occasionally  an  independent  newspaper  at  the  North  speaks 
out  with  a  better  and  truer  philosophy  in  a  tone  like  that,  for 
example,  in  which  the  Chicago  Chronicle  comments  on  some 
of  these  Tuskegee  speeches: 

"The  distinguished  white  men  who  delivered  addresses  last  week  at 
the  celebration  of  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the 
Tuskegee  Institute  said  some  wise  things  and  gave  the  negroes  plenty  of 
good  though  trite  advice,  along  with  some  that  was  not  altogether  judi- 
cious. 

"They  all  told  the  young  negroes  whom  they  were  addressing  that  they 
must  first  become  educated,  and  educated  chiefly  up  to  economic  inde- 


150  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

pendence, — that  they  must  make  themselves  indispensable  as  workers  in 
the  fields  and  shops  and  become  good,  humble,  toiling  citizens,  suppressing 
higher  aspirations,  before  they  would  become  fairly  entitled  to  the  ballot. 
And  they  gave  scant  encouragement  to  look  for  anything  political  beyond 
the  ballot,  though  they  assured  the  negroes  that  they  were  in  the  country 
to  stay.  .  .  .  This  teaching  .  .  .  calmly  assumes  that  the 
ballot  is  something  to  be  given  only  to  those  who  know  how,  and  are  dis- 
posed, to  use  it  wisely  for  the  benefit  of  less  enlightened  and  moral  people, 
and  is  not  given  to  everybody  because  he  needs  it  himself.  The  fact  is 
that  men  want  and  need  the  ballot  for  their  protection  against  wrong  and 
oppression.  The  right  to  a  vote  in  choosing  those  who  make  and  administer 
the  laws — which  is  what  is  meant  by  the  "ballot  "  in  this  discussion — 
was  demanded  before  this  Republic  existed,  first  by  a  select  and  powerful 
class  for  its  own  better  protection,  then  by  a  larger  and  less  select  class 
for  the  same  purpose,  and  so  on  to  universal  manhood  suffrage.  As  a 
means  of  defense  it  was  needed  as  much — nay,  more — by  the  lowest  and 
most  oppressed  class  as  by  the  highest  which  had  been  divested  of  political 
rights.  This  is  historically  true,  irrespective  of  our  own  political  experi- 
ence. It  was  in  recognition  of  this  truth  that  the  right  to  vote  was  guaran- 
teed by  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  our  national  Con- 
stitution. The  right  to  vote  was  given  to  the  negro,  not  because  he  was 
educated  or  wise,  for  he  was  neither,  but  because  he  needed  it  for  his  pro- 
tection against  those  who  denied  him  civil  rights  and  the  protection  of  the 
laws  and  sought  to  reduce  him  to  slavery  more  cruel  and  barbarous  than 
that  which  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  sought  to  abolish  forever." 

As  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker  *  has  pointed  out,  the  color 
line  is  avowedly  drawn  in  the  South  in  every  relation — in  the 
street  cars,  the  elevators,  office  buildings,  public  libraries 
and  railway  cars.  He  found  everywhere — as  all  find  who  come 
in  actual  contact  with  Southern  conditions — evidences  of  a 
dwarfing  and  benumbing  environment,  of  short-sightedness, 
and  often  an  inhuman  hatred  staring  him  in  the  face.  This 
is  the  situation  that  is  causing  the  iron  to  enter  into  the  soul 
of  the  colored  race  in  the  South,  who,  whether  white  men  will 
or  not,  one  of  these  days  will  throw  off  their  badge  of  servitude 
to  an  oligarchy  and  call  a  halt. 

The  conditions  that  actually  exist  in  the  South  are  not  ap- 

*  American  Magazine. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  151 

predated  or  are  lightly  regarded  by  the  generation  since  the 
war;  and  it  will  only  be  by  an  aroused  public  conscience  de- 
manding that  the  questions  at  issue  be  fairly  and  squarely 
met  and  settled,  that  a  possible  disaster  may  be  averted,  should, 
as  may  happen,  the  worm,  trodden  on  too  often,  turn  and 
refuse  to  be  trampled  on  longer!  Mean  while  the  patience  of 
the  unfortunate  race  is  praiseworthy. 

At  the  Jamestown  Exposition  (1907)  the  colored  visitors 
were  made  to  feel  how  slightingly  they  are  treated  by  being 
obliged  to  seek  refreshment — even  a  drink  of  water — at  a 
special  pavilion  for  colored  folks,  refreshment  being  refused 
to  them  in  all  the  other  pavilions. 

An  ex-Governor  of  Georgia  *  is  reported  to  have  said  in  a 
public  speech  that: 

"All  history  shows  that  no  two  races,  approaching  in  any  degree  equality 
in  numbers,  can  live  peaceably  together  unless  intermarriage  takes  place, 
or  the  one  becomes  dependent  on  the  other!" 

The  reasoning  intended  obviously  is,  that  to  prevent  inter- 
marriage such  dependence  must  be  actually  enforced. 

In  a  thoughtful  article  in  the  American  Magazine  for  January, 
1907,  the  distinguished  New  York  preacher,  Dr.  Washington 
Gladden,  sought  to  answer  the  question,  "Is  the  Separation  of 
the  Two  Races  to  Become  Necessary?"  He  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  two  races  are  destined  to  live  in  the  South 
together,  and  that  schemes  of  deportation,  emigration,  or  ex- 
patriation, such  as  are  advocated  by  the  extremists,  are  not 
necessary  and  will  not  be  carried  out.  "Whether  the  two 
races,"  he  says,  "shall  live  together  there  is  the  only  possible 
question.  They  cannot  live  together  unless  both  races  have 
full  opportunity  to  live  a  complete  human  life." 

A  newspaper  comment  on  this  was  as  follows: 

"But  the  reactionists  who  think  that  they  can  have  the  benefit  of  the 
Afro-American  population  as  an  economic  force  and  basis  of  political 

*  Gov.  Northern. 


152  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

apportionment  on  the  slave  basis,  and  with  the  slave  treatment,  are  as 
great  enemies  of  the  South  and  of  the  Republic  as  those  hot-heads  who 
believed  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution,  and  that  there  was  not 
enough  will  and  power  in  the  American  people  to  root  it  out  and  crush 
the  life  out  of  it.  They  found  out  their  error  in  time,  but  at  a  cost  which 
staggered  humanity.  Are  they  preparing  for  a  struggle  of  worse  tragedy 
and  horror  and  cost?  . 

"The  white  South,  the  wise  and  thoughtful  and  decent  part  of  it,  should 
open  its  eyes  to  the  great  gulf  which  the  political  demagogues  have  been 
digging  for  it,  for  their  selfish  purposes,  during  the  past  forty  years,  one 
gang  of  diggers  taking  the  place  of  another  as  the  years  come  and  go,  but 
digging  always  as  their  slave  fathers  did,  toward  the  culmination  of  light- 
ning and  thunder  and  hail  of  fire  which  remorselessly  follow  in  the  wake 
of  human  error  and  stiff -neckedness." 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  enthronement  of  the  desire  of 
the  moment,  whatever  that  desire  may  be,  is  neither  consti- 
tutional government  nor  popular  government  in  any  true 
sense."  * 

Recently  a  Mississippi  representative  offered  a  bill  in  Con- 
gress, and  a  Republican  committee  reported  favorably  upon 
it,  by  the  provisions  of  which  it  was  made  a  felony  for  a  white 
person  to  marry  a  colored  person  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  colored  people  in  the  South 
feel  that  there  is  no  chance  for  them  if  such  race  prejudice 
is  allowed  the  full  scope  that  the  Southern  leaders  are  demand- 
ing? The  President  of  the  United  States,  sworn  to  enforce 
the  laws,  and  Congress  ordered  by  the  Constitution  to  provide 
the  legal  and  executive  machinery  necessary  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  three  War  Amendments  to  the  Constitution,  alike 
remain  supine  and  idle,  while  the  South  flagrantly  violates 
them.  A  Republican  President,  eagerly  regardful  of  the  law- 
breaking,  law-defying  South,  welcoming  accused  lynching  parti- 
cipants to  the  nation's  Executive  mansion,f  in  a  republic 
like  ours,  presents  a  suggestive  spectacle.  Such  episodes 

*  J.  C.  Manning.  f  See  Appendix  F. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  153 

denote  a  growing  official  inclination  to  sacrifice  principle  for 
sentimental  exhibitions.*  It  also  discloses  the  strength  of  an 
oligarchy  that  is  thus  able  to  get  the  imprimatur  from  the 
highest  office-holder  in  the  country  upon  parties  accused  of 
conduct  toward  disregard  of  the  fundamental  law. 

The  way  in  which  that  oligarchy  rules  was  well  illustrated 
by  the  recent  election  for  Governor  of  Georgia.  Previous  pages 
have  called  attention  to  the  nominating  convention.  At  the 
time  of  the  inauguration  of  the  newly  elected  Governor  (Hoke 
Smith),  the  Atlanta  Constitution  editorially  stated  the  issues 
of  the  campaign  for  the  nomination, — issues  which  being 
settled  by  that  nomination  have  in  reality  no  public  interest 
now  that  the  election  has  resulted  in  the  Governorship  being 
given  to  the  more  reactionary  of  the  rival  candidates.  The 
editor  said: 

"Of  the  issues  involved  in  the  gubernatorial  campaign  of  last  year,  it 
may  be  said  that  more  attention  was  directed  to  the  disfranchisement 
question  and  to  the  necessity  of  securing  redress  from  railroad  abuses 
than  all  other  issues  combined.  .  .  .  Indeed,  the  two  issues  were  the 
beginning  and  the  ending  of  the  whole  campaign.  .  .  .  That  of  disfran- 
chisement was  the  most  conspicuous  issue  of  the  campaign  .  .  .;  one 
candidate  advocated  direct  disfranchisement  legislation,  following  the 
lines  of  action  of  other  Southern  States,  while  the  other  candidate  took 
the  position  that  Georgia  had  solved  the  question  of  the  franchise  more 

*  A  little  over  seventy  years  ago,  Mr.  Lincoln,  then  a  young  lawyer  of  Springfield, 
111.,  delivered  before  the  Young  Men's  Lyceum  of  that  town  an  address  upon  "The 
Perpetuation  of  Our  Political  Institutions,"  in  which  he  said: 

"Many  great  and  good  men,  sufficiently  qualified  for  any  task  they  should  under- 
take, may  ever  be  found  whose  ambition  would  aspire  to  nothing  beyond  a  seat  in 
Congress,  a  Gubernatorial  or  a  Presidential  chair.  .  .  .  Towering  genius  disdains 
a  beaten  path.  It  seeks  regions  hitherto  unexplored.  ...  It  scorns  to  tread  in 
the  footsteps  of  any  predecessor,  however  illustrious.  It  thirsts  and  burns  for  distinc- 
tion. .  .  .  Is  it  reasonable,  then,  to  expect  that  some  man  possessed  of  the  loftiest 
genius,  coupled  with  ambition  sufficient  to  push  it  to  its  utmost  stretch,  will  at  some 
time  spring  up  among  us?  .  .  .  Distinction  will  be  his  paramount  object,  and 
although  he  would  as  willingly,  perhaps  more  so,  acquire  it  by  doing  good  as  harm, 
yet,  that  opportunity  being  past  and  nothing  left  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  building  up, 
he  would  set  boldly  to  the  task  of  pulling  down." 


154  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

satisfactorily  than  any  other  Southern  State;  that  the  negro  now  was 
already  legally  disfranchised  in  Georgia  by  a  system  which  was  the  out- 
growth of  the  necessities  of  Reconstruction  days,  and  which  while  eliminat- 
ing the  negro  as  a  factor  in  politics  did  not  deprive  a  single  white  man  of 
the  right  of  the  ballot.  Along  this  line  the  issue  was  fought,  the  successful 
candidate  contending  that  disfranchisement  legislation  could  be  enacted 
that  would  not  be  in  conflict  with  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  which 
would  shut  out  the  negro  from  the  ballot  box  without  denying  the  fran- 
chise to  a  single  white  man.  .  .  .  With  the  voice  of  the  people  em- 
phatically expressed  the  general  assembly  has  no  other  alternative.  The 
people  have  rendered  their  verdict  on  the  subject,  and  it  is  their  will  and 
should  be  law.  .  .  .  Such  legislation  as  has  been  demanded  by  the 
people  at  the  ballot  box  will  have  our  hearty  support." 

In  his  inaugural  address  Governor  Smith  outlined  an  elabo- 
rate proposed  Constitutional  amendment,*  which  classifies  the 
eligibility  of  voters  in  such  a  way  (according  to  his  claim)  as 
not  to  deny  or  abridge  the  right  of  anyone  to  vote  on  account 
of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude,  and  yet  will 
successfully  evade  the  inhibition  of  the  United  States  Con- 
stitution. 

"By  a  vote  of  37  to  6  the  Georgia  Senate  on  July  31,  1907, 
adopted  a  negro  disfranchisement  bill,  which  makes  it  a  con- 
dition of  voting  that  the  citizen  shall  own  or  pay  tax  on  $500 
worth  of  property,  or  be  able  to  read  and  write  a  paragraph 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  or  the  nation,  or  be  descended 
from  a  man  who  fought  in  a  war  in  which  the  United  States 
or  the  Confederate  States  participated,  or  have  a  proper  con- 
ception of  his  duty  to  his  State  and  the  nation." 

The  recent  turning  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  South  "from  the  manip- 
ulation of  election  returns  and  outrages  at  the  ballot  box  to  domination 

*  The  amendment  suggested  by  Governor  Smith  would  divide  the  voters  into  six 
classes,  viz.: 

First  —  All  persons  who  served  in  any  war  of  the  United  States,  the  Confederate 
States  or  the  State  of  Georgia.  Second  —  Their  lawful  descendants.  Third  —  All 
persons  of  good  character  who  understand  the  duties  and  obligations  of  citizenship, 
or,  Fourth,  can  read  and  write  correctly  in  English  any  paragraph  of  the  Federal  or 
State  Constitution.  Fifth — Owners  of  forty  acres  of  land  on  which  they  live,  or,  Sixth, 
owners  of  $500  worth  of  taxable  property  in  the  State. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  155 

by  the  shrewdness  of  Constitutional  trickery,  and  the  divers  other  'legal- 
ized' methods  known  only  to,  and  characteristic  only  of,  the  Southern  alleged 
'democracy,'  is  an  intended  salve  to  ease  strickened  consciences,  and 
also  a  cloak  by  which  the  hope  is  had  that  the  real  political  depravity 
of  this  re'gime  of  now  may  be  to  some  extent  disguised  and  the  wrath  of  a 
righteous  national  public  sentiment  thereby  avoided." 

The  Governor  of  Georgia  in  his  Inaugural  said: 

"Any  plan  for  the  negroes  which  fails  to  recognize  the  differ- 
ence between  the  white  and  the  black  races  will  fail.  The 
honest  student  of  history  knows  that  the  negro  had  full  op- 
portunity (?)  for  generations  to  develop  before  the  days  of 
slavery;  that  the  negro  race  was  improved  by  slavery  and  that 
the  majority  of  the  negroes  in  this  State  have  ceased  to  improve 
since  slavery.  Pew  have  been  helped  by  learning  from  books. 
All  have  been  helped  who  have  been  taught  or  made  to 
work. 

"The  negro  child  should  be  taught  manual  labor  and  how 
to  live.  The  negro  teacher  should  be  selected  less  by  book 
than  by  character  examination.  The  negro  school  should 
help  the  negro,  not  injure  him.  Racial  differences  cannot 
be  overcome  by  misguided  philanthropists.  Superiority  does 
not  justify  cruelty.  The  man  who  breaks  the  law  to  punish 
a  criminal  is  himself  a  criminal.  There  is  no  place  in  Georgia 
for  riots  and  mobs.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Governor  to  exhaust 
the  power  of  his  office  to  enforce  the  law  and  to  prevent  lynch- 
ing, and  I  shall  perform  this  duty.  I  recognize  the  duty  of  the 
white  man  to  be  absolutely  just  to  the  negro."  * 

*  Since  the  above  was  written  a  news  dispatch  to  the  New  York  Sun  of  July  31,  1907, 
rans  as  follows: 

"By  37  to  6  the  Georgia  Senate  this  afternoon  adopted  a  drastic  negro  disfranchise- 
ment  bill.  The  measure  now  goes  to  the  House,  where  it  will  also  receive  an  over- 
whelming majority. 

"In  order  to  vote  under  the  proposed  law  a  man  must  own  or  pay  tax  on  $500  worth 
of  property  or  be  able  to  read  and  write  a  paragraph  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State 
or  of  the  United  States. 

"If  he  cannot  comply  with  these  provisions,  and  few  negroes  can,  he  is  entitled  to 


156  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

There  is  thus  no  concealment,  but  an  open  avowal  of  purpose. 
Whatever  question,  therefore,  is  to  be  discussed  regarding  it 
should  be  based  upon  its  merits  and  not  upon  its  technical 
features  as  to  whether  the*  United  States  Constitution  had  or 
had  not  been  successfully  evaded.  The  merits  or  demerits 
of  the  proposal  are  more  fundamental  than  such  a  superficial 
question.  They  relate  back  to  the  political  manhood  of  the 
colored  man;  shall  it  be  or  shall  it  not  be  extinguished?  This 
newly  elected  champion  of  such  a  policy  of  extinguishment 
obviously  thinks  he  is  very  liberal  as  well  as  just  when  he  de- 
clares, as  he  did  in  his  Inaugural,  that  it  is  "the  duty  of  the 
white  man  to  be  absolutely  just — yes,  he  should  be  kind — to 
the  negro.  The  white  man  should  exercise  a  controlling  direc- 
tion, tempered  with  kindness,  over  the  negro."  Indeed,  the 
speaker's  benevolence  would  go  further  and  practically  re- 
instate the  negro  as  a  slave;  for  in  the  same  speech  he  said, 
"The  white  men  of  the  various  localities  of  the  State  should 
know  and  apprehend  any  idle  unidentified  negro  who  appears 
in  any  locality!"  *  Thus  is  urged  the  right  of  a  white  man  to 
arrest  a  negro  if  he  thinks  that  that  negro  is  "idle."  There 
may  not  be  many  millionaire  negroes  journeying  as  tourists; 
but  in  such  a  case  the  tourist  of  coloi  had  better  eliminate 
Georgia  from  his  itinerary. 

A  fair  specimen  of  civic  liberty  and  the  rights  of  citizenship, 
as  those  terms  are  understood  by  some  political  leaders,  is 
aptly  illustrated  by  this  gubernatorial  proposition. 

The  Governor's  declarations  are  thus  commented  upon  in 
the  press: 

register  and  vote  if  he  is  descended  from  any  man  who  fought  in  any  of  the  wars  in 
which  the  United  States  or  Confederate  States  participated. 

"Lastly,  he  is  entitled  to  register  and  vote  if  he  has  a  proper  conception  of  his  duty 
to  his  State  and  to  the  nation! 

"Under  the  last-named  provision  every  white  man  in  Georgia  will  register,  and  once 
registered  he  will  have  a  life  certificate  and  will  then  have  only  to  pay  his  taxes  to  enjoy 
the  right  of  suffrage." 

*  See  Appendix  I. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  157 

"  White  men,  particularly  Southern  men,  should  condemn  the  policy 
of  Governor  Smith.  The  negro  must  be  educated,  not  only  in  the  manual 
arts,  but  intellectually.  The  two  things  cannot  be  separated — head  and 
hand  must  develop  together  as  they  always  have.  As  to  the  suffrage  the 
same  bars  put  up  against  the  ignorant  black  man  must  be  put  up  against 
the  ignorant  white  man.  The  Alabama  plan,  suggested  for  Georgia,  is  in 
plain  violation  of  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  Constitution,  and  followed, 
is  sure  to  sow  the  seeds  of  future  trouble — as  surely  now  as  did  slavery, 
although  slavery  for  generations  seemed  unmenaced.  But  of  injustice 
good,  neither  material  nor  moral,  can  come.  Not  even  Governor  Smith 
will  deny  the  fundamental  injustice  of  one  law  for  the  man  of  color  and 
another  law  for  the  man  without  color."  * 

Reverting  to  the  fallacious  proposition  that  economic  prog- 
ress must  precede  the  performance  of  civic  rights,  one  may 
glance  instructively  at  the  facts  that,  according  to  the  Twelfth 
Census  Bulletin,  No.  8,  the  value  of  farm  property  held  by 
negroes  in  the  United  States  aggregated  $230,000,000,  and 
there  are  more  than  200,000  farms  owned  by  negroes.  In  ten 
Southern  States  there  are  more  negroes  farm  owners  than 
negroes  allowed  to  vote.  Thus  there  are  negro  farm  owners 
in  Alabama,  14,110;  in  Arkansas,  11,941;  Florida,  6,552;  Georgia, 
11,375;  Louisiana,  9,378;  Mississippi,  21,973;  North  Carolina, 
17,520;  South  Carolina,  18,970;  Texas,  20,139;  and  Virginia, 
26,566. 

"Forty  years  after  emancipation  25.2  per  cent,  or  about 
one-fourth  of  all  negro  farmers  had  become  landlords."  f 

Since  the  war  the  colored  people  have  made  considerable 
economic  progress. 

The  story  in  Alexander's  Magazine  (Boston)  for  July,  of 
Mound  Bayou,  the  negro  town  in  Mississippi,  directs  attention 
to  circumstances  that  go  further  to  show  the  capabilities  of 
the  negro  than  ten  thousand  tales  of  white  men  who  "know 
the  negro  thoroughly,"  but  only  as  a  slave  or  menial.  This 
town  was  founded  by  Isaiah  Montgomery,  a  negro  of  pure  blood, 

*  New  York  Globe,  July  1,  1907.  t  Twelfth  Census  Bulletin,  No.  8. 


158  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

who  was  once  a  slave  of  Jefferson  Davis.  He  was  its  first 
mayor.  Although  a  white  population  has  drifted  in,  it  is 
comparatively  small  and  the  town  is  negro  in  its  government 
and  negro  in  its  business.  It  is  like  any  other  thriving  country 
town  at  the  South  except,  said  Alexander's  naively,  "that  the 
streets  may  be  cleaner,  the  houses  and  fences  in  better  condition, 
and  the  buildings  perhaps  more  modern." 

In  regard  also  to  negro  crime  as  compared  with  white, 
Southern  detractors  would  do  well  to  heed  the  following  state- 
ment: 

Speaking  on  "The  Standing  Indictment  Against  the  Negro," 
the  Rev.  Beverdy  C.  Ransom,  pastor  of  the  Bethel  A.  M.  E. 
Church,  in  Twenty-fifth  Street,  New  York  City,  said  in  his 
sermon  on  August  11,  1907: 

"For  more  than  twenty  years  the  nation  has  been  ringing  with  charges 
against  negroes.  At  this  very  time  Senator  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina, 
is  preaching  a  crusade  against  the  negroes  from  the  platforms  of  the 
Chautauqua  assemblies  throughout  the  North,  East  and  West,  and  South- 
ern politicians  and  writers  industriously  use  the  negro  as  a  scarecrow  to 
rally  their  countrymen. 

"Now,  what  have  we  here  in  New  York,  the  metropolis  and  financial 
capital  of  America,  with  her  Carnegie  institutes,  libraries,  museums,  art 
galleries,  Columbia  University  and  the  home  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States?  Inside  of  six  weeks  there  have  been  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  alleged  attacks  upon  women  and  children.  It  is  a  fact  that  the 
present  wave  of  crime  in  this  city  has  not,  so  far  as  definite  information 
goes,  produced  a  single  instance  in  which  a  negro  was  implicated  in  any 
of  these  alleged  attacks.  There  have  been  more  crimes  committed  against 
women  and  children  in  Greater  New  York  by  whites  in  the  last  sixty  days 
than  have  been  charged  against  the  whole  10,000,000  negroes  of  the  United 
States  in  the  last  six  months! 

"  If  one  will  read  the  names  of  the  men  who  have  been  charged  with  or 
arraigned  for  attacks  upon  women,  it  will  be  discovered  that  the  majority 
of  them  are  names  not  familiar  to  the  English-speaking  tongue.  We  are 
informed  that  President  Roosevelt  dishonorably  discharged  a  battalion 
of  the  Twenty-fifth  Infantry,  U.  S.  A.,  because  it  was  alleged  that  the  men 
stood  together  as  negroes  by  not  telling  the  authorities  the  names  of  those 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  159 

who  'shot  up'  Brownsville.  In  this  city,  as  elsewhere,  a  trivial  cause  may 
produce  a  race  riot.  If  one-tenth  of  the  crimes  committed  by  white  men 
in  the  last  thirty  days  had  been  committed  by  negroes,  the  Southern  press 
would  be  pointing  out  to  the  world  an  example  of  how  the  Southern 
home  is  menaced,  and  North  and  South  alike  be  pointing  to  these  crimes 
as  the  outcropping  of  the  savage  instincts  of  an  inferior  race. 

"The  North  acquiesces  in  the  South's  nullification  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  and  the  elimination  of  the  negro  from  politics,  lest  our  free 
institutions  be  imperiled;  while  in  the  city  of  New  York  five-sixths  of  the 
voters  are  foreign  born  or  the  sons  of  foreign  born.  To  reach  the  voters 
of  this  city  in  the  last  municipal  election,  speeches  had  to  be  delivered 
in  nineteen  different  languages  and  fifteen  additional  different  dialects.  .  .  . 

"Despite  the  injustice,  hatred,  outrage  and  violence  between  the  races 
in  the  South,  the  Southern  negro  and  the  white  man — who,  after  all,  are 
thoroughly  American  in  language,  custom,  aspiration  and  patriotism — 
may  yet  be  compelled  to  join  hands  to  rescue  our  ship  of  state  when  some 
foreign  crew  would  ground  her  on  the  rocks  of  Socialism  and  Anarchy." 


XII 

"Some  men  there  are,  love  not  a  gaping  pig, 
Some  that  are  mad,  if  they  behold  a  cat ; 
Masterless  passion  sways  it  to  the  mood, 
Of  what  it  likes  or  loathes." — Merchant  of  Venice. 

The  same  purpose  manifested  by  Governor  Smith's  speech 
animated  two  campaigners  in  competition  for  the  Senatorship 
from  Mississippi.  One  of  them,  who  is  the  minority  leader  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  is  reported  as  having  said  in  a 
public  debate  with  his  competitor:  "  If  such  a  thing  as  the  repeal 
of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  could  be  brought  about  without 
reinstating  the  negro  in  politics,  I  would  work  for  it,  vote  for 
it,  and  do  anything  in  my  power  possible  to  get  it."  He  ad- 
vised his  competitor,  however,  not  to  make  that  attempt,  for 
the  attempt  itself  would  lead  to  "a  drastic  enforcement  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment."  Moreover,  he  asked,  what  would 
the  repeal  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  have  to  do  with  the 
case.  Would  it  abolish  the  negro?  Would  not  the  negro 
with  the  same  nature  still  be  here?  .  .  .  "Now,  my 
friends,  I  will  ask  you  do  you  want  the  Yankee  to  take 
charge  of  the  negro  question?"  (Loud  answers  of  "No,  no, 
no,  no! ") 

"Now,  this  agitation  would  simply  mean  the  enforcement  of 
the  Fourteenth  and  not  the  repeal  of  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment. As  far  as  I  can  see,  the  door  of  hope  is  already  closed 
on  the  nigger  politically.  It  is  not  the  negro  franchise  that  is 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  161 

now  a  menace  to  Mississippi;  it  is  the  negro  himself.     HE  is 

CUT  OUT  OF  THE  FRANCHISE  NOW,  BUT  IT   IS  HIM  WE  FEAR  AND 
NOT  HIS  VOTE."  * 

Such  utterances  are  by  no  means  unique  among  Southern 
political  leaders,  and  under  the  circumstances  it  is  not  strange 
that  his  competitor,  the  present  Governor  of  Mississippi,  should 
give  voice  to  his  feelings  by  declaring,  "I  am  not  one  of  those 
who  are  glad  that  the  Confederacy  failed  in  its  purpose.  I 
would  rather  live  under  the  stars  and  bars  under  Jefferson 
Davis  than  under  the  stars  and  stripes  with  Theodore  Roose- 
velt as  President  of  the  United  States."  f  Thus  is  again 
illustrated  the  fact  that  the  philosophy  and  tactics  of  the 
Southern  politicians  of  ante-bellum  days  find  corresponding 
recurrence  in  the  sentiment  and  desires  of  the  men  charged 
to-day  with  the  responsibilities  of  leadership. 

The  Governor  of  Mississippi  is  the  same  statesman  (?)  who 
earlier  in  his  career  declared,  "I  am  just  as  much  opposed  to 
Booker  Washington  with  all  his  Anglo-Saxon  reinforcement 
voting  as  I  am  to  the  voting  by  the  cocoanut-headed,  chocolate- 
colored  typical  coon  who  blacks  my  boots  .  .  ."  "Who 
can  doubt,"  says  a  Southern  writer,  "that  the  expressions 
of  Vardaman,  uncloaked  with  any  evasive  sophistry  and  hy- 
pocrisy, are  but  the  undisguised  sentiment  of  the  more  discreet 
of  the  political  type  honoring  him  and  of  which  he  is  a  member 
in  high  rank?" 

This  is  the  same  Governor  who  in  a  speech  on  August  26, 
1906,  at  Brookhaven,  Miss.,  urged  his  hearers  to  see  to  it,  in 
selecting  legislators  next  year,  "that  they  choose  men  who 
would  vote  to  stop  granting  appropriations  for  the  education 
of  negro  children.  Three  years  ago  he  stood  alone  in  such  an 
advocacy.  Now  six  candidates  for  Governor  had  come  to  his 
platform.  .  .  .  He  would  rather  be  instrumental  in  ob- 

*  Report  of  Fourth  of  July  Debate,  New  York  Sun,  July  5, 1907. 
•(•  Vardaman. 


162  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

taming  the  repeal  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  than  to  wield 
the  scepter  of  Edward  VII." 

His  competitor  *  in  the  Mississippi  campaign  is  reported 
as  having  said: 

"He  (the  negro)  may  have  a  soul  to  be  saved,  and  so  may 
other  animals.  I  know  the  darkey  is  another  animal,  but  I  do 
not  hate  him.  I  do  not  hate  the  rattlesnake  because  of  his 
rattlesnake  nature,  nor  the  nigger  for  his  nigger  nature.  God 
made  them  both,  so  let  it  go  at  that.  Though  why  He  made 
either  the  nigger  or  the  rattlesnake  I  do  not  know!  " 

In  the  veritable  sectional  spirit  prevalent  in  his  constituency 
the  Senatorial  candidate-elect  in  his  speech  following  his 
success  at  the  Primaries  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  con- 
secrated himself  and  dedicated  his  energies  anew  "to  the  service 
of  the  South,  the  State,  the  Party  and  the  Race."  It  will  be 
noted  that  he  omits,  indeed  does  not  even  imply,  the  consecration 
of  his  personality  to  the  service  of  the  Nation.  Had  a  Senator- 
elect  of  a  Northern  State  publicly  declared  that  he  consecrated 
himself  to  the  service  of  the  North  (as  this  one,  to  the  South), 
he  would  have  been  denounced  as  raising  sectional  issues;  but 
apparently  geographical  lines  promote  a  different  species  of 
patriotism!  The  nation  and  its  legitimate  concerns  are  given 
second  place.  National  interests  are  made  subordinate  to 
what  may  be  deemed  best  for  the  South  as  a  section  and  its 
one  party.  This  pretentious  consecration  typically  embodies 
the  view  of  the  South  that  its  seats  in  Congress  are  to  represent 
a  section,'  and  a  State  of  that  section,  and  to  see  how  far  the 
United  States,  its  power  and  affluence,  may  be  made  useful 
to  that  section  and  to  and  for  a  State  that  helps  to  form  that 
section.  In  other  words,  narrow,  sectional  interests  predominate 
over  the  entity  of  the  nation.  The  speech  further  illustrates 
the  obsession  of  Southern  thought  and  expression,  on  all 

*  John  Sharp  Williams. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  163 

occasions  whether  appropriate  or  inappropriate,  of  the  ever- 
lasting bogy  yclept  "race  "I 

As  the  speaker  is  the  recognized  leader  of  his  party,  and  in 
his  personality  accustomed  more  or  less  to  receive  encomiums 
from  his  adversaries,  his  declarations  in  this  regard  are  note- 
worthy. 


XIII 

"  .  .  Whether  partisan  or  independent,  strive  to  be  just,  and  to 
see  things  as  they  are.  .  .  ." — Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 

".  .  .  Marathon,  Yorktown  and  Gettysburg  were  glorious  triumphs 
of  arms.  True,  but  were  they  not  also  glorious  triumphs  of  opinion?  " — 
Luther  A.  Ostrander. 

Since  the  second  Cleveland  Administration,  and  practically 
since  1877,  the  South  has  had  a  free  hand  to  enact  a  body  of 
proscribing  laws  in  many  respects  as  odious  and  repressive 
as  the  Black  Codes.  The  political  and  civil  rights  guaranteed 
by  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  have  been 
denied  and  abridged  by  State  and  local  usage.  Under  pre- 
tence of  convictions  for  crime,  involuntary  servitude,  in  spite 
of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  has  been  legalized  and  contract 
labor  erected  into  an  involuntary  servitude. 

The  right  to  be  exempt  from  discrimination  in  voting,  on 
account  of  race,  was  made,  under  the  Fifteenth  Amendment, 
an  attribute  of  national  citizenship. 

Can  the  nation  permit  the  violation  of  all  these  basic  prin- 
ciples of  the  Constitution?  Can  disfranchisement  and  labor 
through  involuntary  servitude,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  be  con- 
tinued and  tolerated  in  a  nation  founded  upon  the  liberty  and 
franchise  of  its  citizens? 

Speaking  on  this  question  a  few  years  ago  the  then  Governor 
of  Tennessee  said: 

"This  problem  must  be  settled  by  the  South,  but  the  aid  and  sympathy 
of  the  North  are  essential.  If  they  will  not  help  us,  if  they  will  not  repeal 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  165 

the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution,  then  let 
us  here  resolve  that  we  will  write  in  the  fundamental  law  of  every  Southern 
State  a  guarantee  to  the  negro  for  protection  of  life,  property  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  but  forever  denying  to  the  vicious  and  ignorant  all 
political  rights." 

It  is  wiser  and  better  to  say,  as  a  prominent  negro  *  teacher 
expressed  it,  that — 

"If  this  country  is  to  continue  to  be  a  republic  its  task  will  never  be 
completed  as  long  as  seven  or  eight  millions  of  its  people  are  in  a  large 
degree  regarded  as  aliens,  and  are  without  voice  or  interest  in  the  welfare 
of  the  Government.  Such  a  course  will  not  merely  inflict  great  injustice 
upon  these  millions  of  people,  but  the  nation  will  pay  the  price  of  finding 
the  genius  and  form  of  its  government  changed,  not  perhaps  in  name,  but 
certainly  in  reality;  and  because  of  this  the  world  will  say  that  free  govern- 
ment is  a  failure." 

Those  who  to-day  promote  and  acquiesce  in  the  present  con- 
ditions are  cultivating  a  vicious  sectionalism  that  is  a  national 
sore  and  a  menace  to  republican  nationalism. 

It  is  to  Congress,  and  not  to  the  Judiciary,  that  appeals 
must  be  made  for  the  amelioration  of  these  unconstitutional 
discriminations. 

The  first  step  is  to  reduce  representation,  figuring  the  reduc- 
tion according  to  existing  usages.  That  being  done,  the  good 
sense  of  the  people  in  the  affected  States  would  operate  to 
restore  an  impartial  suffrage. 

Had  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  authorized  an  investigation, 
or  projected  remedial  legislation  under  bills  introduced  for 
that  purpose,  to  meet  the  electoral  conditions  in  the  South, 
it  would  have  become  apparent  that  the  political  oligarchy 
there  has  no  more  respect  for  free  institutions  and  the  national 
Republic  itself,  than  had  the  slave  oligarchy  in  1859. 

The  resistance  to  any  species  of  equality  is  the  natural  out- 
come of  caste.  As  long  as  a  community,  or  its  leading  inter- 

*  Booker  T.  Washington. 


166  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

ests,  believe  that  there  is  no  true  democracy  except  that  which 
recognizes  this  caste,  or  recognizes  distinctions  that  are  in  no 
philosophic  sense  representative  of  the  democratic  spirit, 
there  will  continue  to  remain  in  evidence  an  undemocratic 
condition. 

Equality  in  the  public  sense,  that  is,  in  a  truly  democratic 
sense,  does  not  of  course  mean  equality  in  physical  attain- 
ments, equality  in  intellect,  or  equality  in  worldly  possessions. 
It  means  equal  consideration  in  the  sight  of  men  and  of  man's 
law,  as  well  as  in  the  sight  of  God  and  God's  law.  "The  demo- 
cratic mind  puts  all  men  on  an  equality  in  their  common 
humanity."  The  aristocratic  mind  loves  to  be  greeted  with 
those  very  distinctions  which  customarily  separate  dignitaries 
from  other  men.  The  New  Testament  teaches  that  "God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons";  yet  that  is  a  species  of  equality 
absolutely  foreign  to  the  aristocratic  mind.  Man-made  law 
does  respect  persons,  as  may  be  conceded  to  be  right  touching 
material  things;  but  man-made  law  has  pretentiously  so  fash- 
ioned itself  after  the  higher  law  as  to  declare  in  a  democracy  that, 
with  regard  at  least  to  civic  relations,  there  shall  be  absolute 
equality  established  and  maintained:  not  a  physical  or  social 
equality;  nevertheless  an  equality  in  those  relations  which  it 
is  agreed  constitute  society  when  its  individual  units  are 
grouped  and  governed  as  an  organized  democracy.  Granted 
that  some  of  those  units  are  physically  or  mentally  inferior 
to  others,  that  inferiority  does  not  destroy  equality  in  the  civic 
relations,  even  if  there  appears  to  exist  a  social  caste.  The 
civic  rights  of  the  lowest  caste  are  theoretically  before  the  law, 
and  in  the  making  of  the  law,  equal  to  the  rights  of  those  with  the 
most  distinguished  standing. 

If  this  were  really  the  spirit  animating  the  state,  or  all  of 
its  local  communities,  as  unhappily  it  is  not,  there  would  be 
harmony  in  its  constituent  units.  Life  in  this  spirit  knows 
no  bugaboo  of  negro  supremacy! 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  167 

But  it  goes  without  saying  that  this  is  not  the  spirit  in  which 
the  colored  people,  as  a  factor  in  the  Southern  States,  are  re- 
garded. It  is  incontestable  that  by  all  those  in  authority  and 
by  all  those  who  seek  authority  or  who  appeal  to  the  public 
suffrages  for  authority,  the  colored  population,  while  treated 
kindly  and  hopefully,  are  regarded  as  factors  in  the  State 
which  are  and  for  ever  must  remain  politically  subordinate  and 
never  co-equal  with  those  who  now  dominate  all  State  affairs. 
Whatever  of  protection  to  person  or  to  property  may  be  needed 
for  those  thus  subordinate  is  to  be  arrived  at  without  their 
participation,  through  laws  in  the  making  of  which  they  have 
no  voice;  through  lawmakers  in  the  selection  of  whom  they 
have  no  choice;  through  administrators  of  those  laws  concerning 
whom  they  have  nothing  to  say;  and  by  forms  of  a  government 
exercising  all  the  varied  powers  vested  in  the  chiefs  of  organ- 
ized society  under  which  its  dark-hued  members  exist  as  a 
passive  factor.  If  this  government  of  society  depended  for  its 
preservation  and  peace  and  happiness  upon  the  maintenance 
and  protection  of  caste  and  of  a  cultivated  opinion  as  to  the 
necessity  of  caste,  such  a  situation  might  be  without  peril; 
but  as  long  as  society  itself  pretends  to  be  democratic  and 
ostentatiously  declares  that  it  is  nothing  else,  and  that  there 
are  always  and  ever  shall  be  equal  participation  for  equal 
citizens,  then  by  the  subjection  of  any  one  class  to  another 
class,  no  matter  under  what  pretence  such  subjection  occurs 
and  is  maintained,  it  can  only  be  a  question  of  time  when  an 
explosion  of  such  fulminating  material  will  destroy  such  an 
artificial  structure  of  society. 

When  novel  writers  and  publicists  extol  what  they  call 
"the  old  civilization"  of  the  Southern  States,  they  do  so  in 
recognition  of  caste,  and  of  such  a  spirit  of  state  organization 
as  was  necessary  to  maintain  a  condition  of  slavery.  Such  a 
condition  organized,  established  and  maintained,  offers  a 
security  to  society  more  stable  and  less  dangerous  than  the 


168  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

attempt  to  arrive  at  a  corresponding  result  without  the  safe- 
guards that  are  deemed  essential  to  a  peaceful  slavery. 

The  War  of  the  Rebellion  may  be  philosophized  as  a  conflict 
of  civilizations  similar  to  the  conflict  between  the  Persian  and 
Greek  civilizations  on  the  plain  of  Marathon  and  at  the  pass 
of  Thermopylae.  Just  as  Persia,  effete  and  decadent,  en- 
countered the  virility  and  patriotic  ardor  of  Greece,  so  it  may 
not  improperly  be  said  that  from  1861  to  1866  two  civiliza- 
tions, whose  thoughts,  ideas,  aspirations,  interests  and  desires, 
utterly  antipodal  in  peace,  irrepressibly  collided  at  the  first 
shock  of  war.  The  "old  civilization"  of  the  Southern  States, 
sentimentally  and  thoughtlessly  alluded  to,  was  not  a  civiliza- 
tion conducive  to  the  perpetuity  and  free  citizenship  of  the 
Republic,  nor  was  it  so  esteemed  by  the  Founders.  It  was  a 
purely  local  civilization,  founded  on  caste,  and  not  nationally 
representative. 

Between  such  a  civilization  and  the  civilization  of  the  North 
there  was  a  natural  conflict  that  sooner  or  later  was  bound  to 
materialize.  The  casus  belli  might  have  been  a  much  more 
trivial  and  unimportant  one  than  it  actually  was.  The  im- 
mediate dispute  that  caused  the  gauntlet  of  war  to  be  flung 
down  was  but  the  incident  of  an  incident,  so  to  speak;  the 
important  fact  being  that  the  one  civilization  based  on  class 
and  privilege  was  destined  to  go  down  before  the  broader 
civilization  grounded  upon  elements  that  make  for  a  true  and 
uplifting  civilization,  and  comprising  elements  that  were  lack- 
ing from  the  boasted  "old  civilization "  of  the  South.  Whether 
one  civilization  was  genuine  and  the  other  spurious  is  im- 
material at  this  point,  if  indeed  it  admits  of  argument.  The 
underlying  conditions  eventually  materialized  in  armed  com- 
bats and  sanguinary  collisions  of  great  armies.  The  people 
of  the  United  States  deliberately  determined  that  the  con- 
ditions represented  by  this  so-called  "old  civilization"  should 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  169 

be  annihilated.  As  a  result  of  that  war  it  was  irrevocably 
declared  by  this  nation  that  those  conditions  should  never  be 
resumed;  a  conclusion  that  was  expressed  and  established  by 
the  three  War  Amendments  which  became  part  of  the  funda- 
mental law  of  the  country. 

He  who  evades,  avoids  or  defies  them,  or  acquiesces  in  such 
evasion,  avoidance  or  defiance,  is  inimical  to  the  Republic's 
true  interests.  But  such  individuals  are  unhappily  to  be  found 
in  both  the  great  political  parties. 

Despite  the  forty-one  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the  war, 
that  "old  civilization"  is  not  yet  sufficiently  moribund  to 
relinquish  political  power — a  power  that  is  maintained  by 
obscuring  facts  of  history,  as  well  as  by  ignoring  or  evading 
constitutional  guarantees. 

An  illustration  of  the  distortions  to  which  history  is  subjected 
is  found  in  the  recent  remarks  of  a  Southern  Senator  in  a 
public  address  at  Anderson,  Indiana,  when,  referring  to  the 
Civil  War,  he  is  reported  to  have  said: 

"There  was  no  revolution.  It  was  simply  a  mean,  bloody 
war  between  brethren  got  up  in  the  North,  and  ought  to  have 
been  prevented!" 

The  Chicago  Chronicle  thereupon  commented: 

"If  the  words  'got  up  in  the  North'  refer  to  Northern  opposition  to  the 
extension  of  slavery  on  which  the  Southern  slave-holding  oligarchy  was 
bent,  he  is  much  mistaken  in  saying  there  was  no  rebellion  in  the  case. 
Northern  opposition  to  slavery  extension  was  merely  an  expression  of  the 
opinion  and  the  fiat  of  the  civilized  world.  When  the  Southern  States 
took  up  arms  to  found  an  empire  with  slavery  as  its  corner-stone  they 
engaged  in  rebellion,  not  only  against  the  rightful  authority  of  the  United 
States,  but  against  civilization.  Their  armies  were  disbanded  forty-one 
years  ago,  but  those  who  dictate  solid-South  poh'tics  have  been  arrayed 
in  resistance  of  the  fiat  of  civilization  ever  since  and  their  resistance  has 
not  been  altogether  passive  by  any  means." 

It  was  said  by  Lieutenant-Go vernor  Sherman  at  Gales- 
burg,  Illinois,  at  the  annual  banquet  of  the  Illinois  State  Bar 


170  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Association,  that  "since  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  a  reaction 
against  the  claims  of  the  revolutionary  States  is  constantly 
advanced.  THESE  CLAIMS  RIGHTFULLY  PERISHED  ON  THE 

FIELD  OF  BATTLE." 

Yet  certain  political  leaders  and  publicists  of  the  South, 
and  indeed  of  the  North  too,  speak  of  the  war  as  if  it  had  been 
a  mutual  mistake,  something  that  should  have  been  averted, 
and  that  actually  accomplished  nothing  beyond  foreclosing 
secession,  leaving  fundamental  issues  still  unsettled.  The  fact 
is  ignored  that  the  war  was  an  inevitable  conflict  of  a  true 
as  against  a  false  civilization,  and  that  among  the  results  of 
the  war,  bought  by  the  sacrifice  of  much  blood  and  treasure, 
were  that  this  nation  in  its  entirety  and  on  every  foot  of  its 
domain  from  that  time  forth  stood  for  the  reiterated  principles 
of  equality,  justice  and  liberty  laid  down  in  its  Constitution. 

It  was  not  a  question,  as  has  been  suggested,  of  an  avoidable 
conflict  resulting  from  opposite  premises;  it  was  a  destined 
collision  and  a  going  down  of  a  civilization  that  lacked  the 
true  key-note  before  one  that  embodied  right,  truth,  justice 
and  fair  dealing.  To-day  the  instructors  of  a  generation  that 
know  the  war  only  as  history  and  by  hearsay,  and  who  com- 
prehend (as  is  not  unnatural)  little  of  the  underlying  issues 
really  at  stake,  are  giving  to  those  who  are  to  come  after  us 
false  notions  and  view-points  that  will  help  lodge  untruths  as 
American  history. 

How  mischievous,  e.g.,  are  words  like  the  following  from  an 
eminent  Southern  editor: 

"It  (party  government)  has  cost  us  a  gigantic  war  which  public  opinion 
might  have  averted  and  would  have  averted  if  it  could  have  o'erleaped 
party  lines  and  sectional  lines;  for  in  1861  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  people  North  and  South  were  opposed  to  war!  They  did  not  believe 
war  possible  until  it  was  upon  them.  A  minority  of  self-confiding  ex- 
tremists, proceeding  hotly  from  opposite  premises,  were  able  to  make  that 
an  irrepressible  conflict  which  the  wisdom  of  both  sides  now  knows  to 
have  been  a  world-problem  waiting  still  to  be  solved  and  hardly  touched 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  171 

by  the  forces  of  the  Confederacy  and  the  Union,  depleting  us  by  an  ocean 
of  blood  and  treasure." 

At  the  Lee  birthday  celebration,  the  speech  of  Governor 
Swanson  was  a  welcome  of  all  veterans  to  Richmond  and 
Virginia.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks  the  Governor  spoke 
feelingly  of  the  "lost  cause,"  saying: 

"In  this  war  the  South  contended  for  the  sovereignty  of  States  against 
Federal  aggression  and  power.  She  fought  for  the  great  principle  of  home 
rule  against  outside,  illegal  interference.  This  great  doctrine  of  home 
rule  is  the  most  precious  of  all  rights  possessed  by  mankind. 

"The  recent  action  of  the  Federal  authorities  in  Washington  in  sus- 
taining and  aiding  the  secession  of  Panama  from  the  Republic  of  Colombia, 
in  South  America,  was  a  complete  and  thorough  indorsement  of  the  justice 
of  the  Southern  secession  movement.  We  are  glad  to  receive  in  the  course 
of  time,  from  this  high  source,  a  thorough  approval  of  the  righteousness 
of  our  course,  though  it  may  come  a  little  belated." 

It  is  in  such  strain  that  the  conclusions  of  the  irrepressible 
conflict  are  innocently,  ignorantly  or  wantonly  sought  to  be 
minimized. 


XIV 

"  I  would  rather  err  with  Plato  than  hold  the  truth  with  the  philosophers." 

— Cicero. 
"  Nor  be  my  service  long  delayed, 

But  quickened  by  a  song, 
Forever  glad  and  unafraid 

To  seize  and  smite  the  wrong." — George  E.  Bowen. 

"In  spite  of  laws  made  to  oppress 
The  weaker  brother  in  distress; 
Laws  to  help  the  Ghouls  of  Greed 
Profit  by  another's  need; 
Laws  which  give  the  fruit  of  toil 
Of  many  men,  to  few — a  spoil." — R.  E.  Chadwick. 

1.  The  attempts  to  resume  the  equivalents  of  ante-bellum 
conditions  were  supposed  to  have  been  extinguished  by  the 
action  taken  under  the  authority  of  the  Constitution  during 
the  years  immediately  following  the  cessation  of  military  hos- 
tilities. What  those  measures  were  and  what  were  the  con- 
ditions they  were  intended  to  ameliorate  have  been  perverted 
in  history,  and  are  to-day  being  assiduously  suppressed,  if  not 
falsified,  by  so  many  writers,  speakers  and  public  men,  that 
even  students  and  academic  philosophers  and  professors  have 
contributed  to  mislead,  if  not  to  debauch,  the  public  mind 
respecting  them. 

One  notable  instance  is  in  a  speech  recently  made  in  Ohio, 
wherein  a  South  Carolina  Senator  said: 

"  If  after  the  war  the  North  had  not,  in  its  passion  and  sectional  hatred, 
gone  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  reason,  decency  and  righteousness,  there 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  173 

would  to-day  be  no  race  problem.  We  resent  and  resist  the  doctrine  of 
equality  under  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments.  .  .  .  You 
have  done  wrong.  The  North  has  done  wrong.  It  can  remedy  the  feeling 
by  repealing  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  and  letting  the  States  control  the 
franchise." 

To  this  asseveration  the  senior  Ohio  Senator  replied  at  Belle- 
fontaine  at  some  length,  exhibiting  the  historical  errors.  For 
that  speech  see  Appendix  G. 

Another  illustration  of  the  discoloration  of  historic  fact, 
if  not  of  actual  misstatements,  by  men  claiming  to  be  jurists 
and  posing  as  public  instructors,  while  receiving  the  honors 
of  public  office  as  well  as  of  collegiate  institutions,  is  furnished 
by  the  comments  in  a  speech,  where  accuracy  might  have  been 
expected,  made  in  New  York  City  at  the  1905  Columbia  Uni- 
versity Commencement.  See  its  discolorations*  denoted  in 
Appendix  H. 

During  the  period  of  years  immediately  following  the  sur- 
render of  the  defeated  armies,  a  most  benign  and  benevolent 
government  was  in  truth  conducted  by  the  United  States 
military  authorities,  with  an  honest  endeavor  to  bring  about 
and  install  such  local  government  as  would  correspondingly 
meet  the  necessarily  changed  conditions  in  the  States  concerned 
and  at  the  same  time  maintain  order,  industrial  peace  and 
harmony  with  the  institutions  of  the  Republic. 

What  the  actual  conditions  were  and  how  mild,  conservative 
and  safe  for  all  concerned  were  the  measures  taken  by  the 
United  States  could  be  easily  shown  by  their  mere  recital;  and 
any  conscientious  student  of  history,  absorbing  his  information 
from  original  sources,  from  public  documents,  statutes  and 
\official  instructions  and  from  contemporaneous  records  of  in- 
contestable facts,  can  arrive  at  no  other  conclusion  than  that 
there  was  not  harshness  or  injustice  imposed  upon  any  indi- 
vidual or  community  whose  heart  and  soul  were  animated  by 

*  Ii  sumus,  qui  omnibus  veria  falsa  qucedam  adjuncta  esse  dicamus,  tanta  similitudine, 
ut  in  ii»  nulla  inni*  certa  judicandi  et  adsentiendi  nota. — CJCERQ. 


174  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  true  spirit  of  democracy,  although  there  is  a  school  of 
writers  to-day  garbling  facts  and  portraying  false  pictures. 

The  admirable  poise,  wisdom  and  sagacity  with  which  the 
situation  was  met,  and  the  changed  conditions  faced  and 
dealt  with  are  abundantly  evidenced  by  Committee  reports 
to  Congress  on  the  Reconstruction  bills  and  the  provisions  of 
Statutes  themselves,  both  proposed  and  enacted,  which — 
though  some  provisions  were  thwarted  by  an  adverse  Presi- 
dent— remain  a  record  showing  consummate  statesmanship 
and  far-sightedness.* 

While  the  effort  to  harmonize  the  changed  circumstances 
was  progressing  towards  success,  the  onward  work  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  machinations  of  politicians  formerly  allied 
to  the  "old  civilization"  so-called,  the  members  of  which 
hoped  for  renewed  power.  This  period  was  that  which  nowa- 
days is  styled  the  Reconstruction  period;  and  it  has  been  an- 
athematized so  that  "Reconstruction"  itself  has  become  a 
noxious  noun  in  the  mouths  of  those  who  have  not  studied 
what  in  truth  is  the  history  it  represents.  The  interruptions 
materialized  in  the  shape  of  localized  armed  resistance  to  the 
representatives  of  the  United  States  government,  extending 
in  some  instances  to  the  murder  of  soldiers.  The  disorders 
of  that  period  came  from  intrigues  aided  by  force  and  fraud. 

In  some  States  there  occurred  what  to-day,  if  happening  in 
South  America  republics,  for  instance,  would  be  called  armed 
revolutions.  Because  the  President  who  was  elected  in  1868, 
having  been  a  man  of  war,  was  still  a  veritable  man  of  peace, 
he  placed  before  Congress  the  facts  from  time  to  time  as  they 
were  reported  to  him,  not  himself  exercising  a  power  that 
perhaps  he  might  justly  have  wielded.  Instead,  he  left  it 
to  Congress  to  take  such  action  as  in  its  judgment  the  reported 
facts  seemed  to  warrant.  Unhappily  this  encouraged,  rather 
than  allayed,  partisan  strife. 

*  See  Appendices  E  and  G- 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  175 

If  the  student  of  history,  instead  of  taking  the  perverted 
statements  regarding  that  period  from  current  literature,  would 
gather  his  history  from  original  sources,  he  would  discover 
such  conditions,  for  example,  as  those  by  which  the  capital 
of  South  Carolina  was  invaded  by  armed  bodies, — some  of 
them  eagerly  transported  by  the  railroad  corporations  in  that 
State.  These  military  bodies,  under  various  technical  pre- 
tences advanced  by  their  leaders,  seized  the  entire  govern- 
mental machinery  of  the  State,  its  banks,  its  offices,  its  moneys, 
and  by  intrigue  and  bravado  finally  persuaded  the  Washing- 
ton authorities  to  withdraw  the  little  handful  of  United  States 
soldiers  who  meanwhile  had  idly  rested  in  the  State  capitol 
as  the  symbol  of  United  States  authority.  It  was  nothing 
short  of  a  State  revolution  that  thus  forcibly  seized  the  State 
authority  and  installed  Hampton  as  Governor.  That  was  in 
the  year  1877,  under  the  pretext  of  a  State  vote  for  Governor 
at  the  preceding  autumn  election  when  the  State  voted  for  the 
Hayes  electoral  ticket.* 

Another  illustration  of  conditions  may  be  found  in  the  history 
of  Louisiana  in  1873-4-5,  where  also  they  culminated  in  armed 
revolution.  In  respect  to  that  State  the  conditions  are  re- 
corded in  official  documents  sent  to  Congress.  Other  illustra- 
tions may  be  found  in  corresponding  occurrences  and  revolu- 
tions by  force  and  intrigue  that  occurred  in  Arkansas  and 
in  Mississippi. 

An  official  report,  May,  1865,  came  from  the  authorities  in 
Arkansas  that  destitute  freedmen  were  coming  there  almost 
daily  from  Texas  and  reported  that  anarchy  and  despotism 
reigned  there.  "Many  are  driven  from  their  homes  and 

*  It  is  common  tradition  that  the  imbecility  of  the  national  authorities  at  that  time 
resulted  from  an  intriguing  bargain  that  the  electoral  vote  of  that  State  should  be 
counted  for  the  Republican  candidate,  in  return  for  allowing  the  State  government 
to  be  deposed  at  local  pleasure, — a  bargain  which,  if  made,  was  violated  by  the  contest 
instituted  over  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  after  having  been  really  cast  for  Hayes, 
the  Republican  candidate. 


176  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

families,  and  many  have  been  shot  and  hung  for  expressing  a 
desire  to  enjoy  their  rights  as  freemen." — New  York  Times 
despatch  from  Washington  of  May  26,  1865. 

In  1875,  General  Sheridan  sent  dispatches  from  New  Orleans 

to  the  Secretary  of  War,  in  which  he  said: 

"  January  4,  1875. 

"  It  is  with  deep  regret  that  I  have  to  announce  to  you  the  existence 
in  this  State  of  a  spirit  of  defiance  to  all  lawful  authority,  and  an  insecurity 
of  life  which  is  hardly  realized  by  the  General  Government  or  the  country 
at  large.  The  lives  of  citizens  have  become  so  jeopardized  that  unless 
something  is  done  to  give  protection  to  the  people,  all  security  usually 
afforded  by  law  will  be  overridden.  Defiance  to  the  laws  and  the  murder 
of  individuals  seem  to  be  looked  upon  by  the  community  here  from  a  stand- 
point which  gives  impunity  to  all  who  choose  to  indulge  in  either,  and 
the  civil  government  appears  powerless  to  punish  or  even  arrest.  I  have 
to-night  assumed  control  over  the  Department  of  the  Gulf.  .  .  ." 

"Januarys,  1875. 

".  .  .  Please  say  to  the  President  that  he  need  give  himself  no  un- 
easiness about  the  condition  of  affairs  here.  I  will  preserve  the  peace, 
which  it  is  not  hard  to  do  with  the  naval  and  military  forces  in  and  about 
the  city,  and  if  Congress  will  declare  the  White  Leagues  and  other  similar 
organizations,  white  or  black,  banditti,  I  will  relieve  it  from  the  necessity 
of  any  special  legislation  for  the  preservation  of  peace  and  equality  of 
rights  in  the  States  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Arkansas,  and  the  Execu- 
tive from  much  of  the  trouble  heretofore  had  in  this  section  of  the  coun- 
try.  .  .  .»• 

Again  he  wrote:  (t. 

"Januarys,  1875. 

"I  think  that  the  terrorism  now  existing  in  Louisiana,  Mississippi  and 
Arkansas  could  be  entirely  removed  and  confidence  and  fair-dealing 
established  by  the  arrest  and  trial  of  the  ringleaders  of  the  armed  White 
Leagues.  If  Congress  would  pass  a  bill  declaring  them  banditti  they 
could  be  tried  by  a  military  commission.  The  ringleaders  of  these  ban- 
ditti, who  murdered  men  here  on  the  14th  of  last  September,  and  also 
more  recently  at  Vicksburg,  Miss.,  should,  in  justice  to  law  and  order 
and  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  this  Southern  part  of  the  country,  be 
punished.  It  is  possible  that  if  the  President  would  issue  a  proclamation 
declaring  them  banditti,  no  further  action  need  be  taken,  except  that 
which  would  devolve  upon  me.  .  .  ." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  177 

This  was  followed  by  a  letter  on  January  6,  1875,  in  which 
he  wrote: 

".  .  .  Some  of  the  banditti  made  idle  threats  last  night  that  they 
would  assassinate  me  because  I  dared  to  tell  the  truth.  I  am  not  afraid, 
and  will  not  be  stopped  from  informing  the  Government  that  there  are 
localities  in  this  department  where  the  very  air  has  been  impregnated  with 
assassination  for  several  years.  .  .  ." 

The  next  day  he  reported  that — 

".  .  .  Bishop  Wilmer  protests  against  my  telegram  of  the  4th 
instant,  forgetting  that  on  Saturday  last  he  testified  under  oath  before 
the  Congressional  Committee  that  the  condition  of  affairs  here  was  sub- 
stantially as  bad  as  reported  by  me.  I  will  soon  send  you  a  statement 
of  the  number  of  murders  committed  in  this  State  during  the  last  three  or 
four  years,  the  perpetrators  of  which  are  still  unpunished.  I  think  that 
the  number  will  startle  you;  it  will  be  up  in  the  thousands.  The  city  is 
perfectly  quiet.  No  trouble  is  apprehended.  .  .  ." 

This  was  followed  on  January  8  by  a  dispatch  saying: 

"  I  shall  send  you  this  evening  a  report  of  affairs  as  they  actually  occurred 
here  on  the  4th  instant.  My  telegram  to  you  of  that  date,  and  those  of  the 
5th  and  6th  inst.,  are  so  truthful  of  the  condition  of  affairs  in  this  section, 
and  strike  so  near  the  water-line,  that  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  and  others 
are  appealed  to  to  keep  the  ship  from  sinking.  Human  life  has  been  held 
too  cheaply  in  this  State  for  many  years." 

Then  officially  he  reported : 

".  .  .  During  the  few  days  in  which  I  was  in  the  city  prior  to  the 
4th  of  January,  the  general  topic  of  conversation  was  the  scenes  of  blood- 
shed that  were  liable  to  occur  on  that  day,  and  I  repeatedly  heard  threats 
of  assassinating  the  Governor,  and  regrets  expressed  that  he  was  not  killed 
on  the  14th  of  September  last;  and  also  threats  of  the  assassination  of 
Republican  members  of  the  House,  in  order  to  secure  the  election  of  a 
Democratic  Speaker.  I  also  knew  of  the  kidnapping  by  the  banditti  of 
Mr.  Cousinier,  one  of  the  members-elect  of  the  Legislature." 

On  January  10,  1875,  he  wrote: 

"Since  the  year  1866  nearly  thirty-five  hundred  persons,  a  great  ma- 
jority of  whom  were  colored  men,  have  been  killed  and  wounded  in  this 


178  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

State.  In  1868  the  official  record  shows  that  eighteen  hundred  and  eighty- 
four  were  killed  and  wounded.  From  1868  to  the  present  time  no  official 
investigation  has  been  made,  and  the  civil  authorities  in  all  but  a  few  cases 
have  been  unable  to  arrest,  convict  and  punish  perpetrators.  Conse- 
quently, there  are  no  correct  records  to  be  consulted  for  information. 
There  is  ample  evidence,  however,  to  show  that  more  than  twelve  hundred 
persons  have  been  killed  and  wounded  during  this  time,  on  account  of  their 
political  sentiments.  .  .  ." 

In  President  Grant's  Special  Message  to  the  Senate  on  Affairs 
in  the  State  of  Louisiana,  which  he  sent  on  January  13,  1875, 
occur  the  following  startling  disclosures: 

"To  say  that  lawlessness,  turbulence  and  bloodshed  have  characterized 
the  political  affairs  of  that  State  (Louisiana)  since  its  reorganization  under 
the  Reconstruction  Acts,  is  only  to  repeat  what  has  become  well  known 
as  a  part  of  its  unhappy  history;  but  it  may  be  proper  here  to  refer  to  the 
election  of  1868,  by  which  the  Republican  vote  of  the  State,  through  fraud 
and  violence,  was  reduced  to  a  few  thousands,  and  the  bloody  riots  of 
1866  and  1868,  to  show  that  the  disorders  there  are  not  due  to  any  recent 
causes,  or  to  any  late  action  of  the  Federal  authorities. 

"Preparatory  to  the  election  of  1872,  a  shameful  and  undisguised  con- 
spiracy was  formed  to  carry  that  election  against  the  Republicans  without 
regard  to  law  or  right,  and  to  that  end  the  most  glaring  frauds  and  forgeries 
were  committed  in  the  returns  after  many  colored  citizens  had  been  denied 
registration,  and  others  deterred  by  fear  from  casting  their  ballots. 


"  To  hold  the  people  of  Louisiana  generally  responsible  for  these  atrocities 
would  not  be  just;  but  it  is  a  lamentable  fact  that  insuperable  obstructions 
were  thrown  in  the  way  of  punishing  these  murderers,  and  the  so-called 
conservative  papers  of  the  State  not  only  justified  the  massacre,  but  denounce 
as  Federal  tyranny  and  despotism  the  attempt  of  the  United  States  officers 
to  bring  them  to  justice.  Fierce  denunciations  ring  through  the  country 
about  office-holding  and  election  matters  in  Louisiana,  while  every  one  of 
the  Coif  ax  miscreants  goes  unwhipped  of  justice,  and  no  way  can  be  found 
in  this  boasted  land  of  civilization  and  Christianity  to  punish  the  perpetrators 
of  this  bloody  and  monstrous  crime. 

"  Not  unlike  this  was  the  massacre  in  August  last.     Several  Northern 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  179 

young  men  of  capital  and  enterprise  had  started  the  little  and  flourishing 
town  of  Coushatta.  .  .  .  Some  of  them  were  Republicans  and  office- 
holders under  Kellogg.  They  were  therefore  doomed  to  death.  Six  of 
them  were  seized  and  carried  away  from  their  homes  and  murdered 
in  cold  blood.  No  one  has  been  punished;  and  the  CONSERVATIVE  PRESS 
OF  THE  STATE  DENOUNCED  ALL  EFFORTS  to  the  end,  and  boldly  justified 
the  crime. 


"To  say  that  the  murder  of  a  negro  or  a  white  Republican  is  not  con- 
sidered a  crime  in  Louisiana  would  probably  be  unjust  to  a  great  part 
of  the  people ;  but  it  is  true  that  a  great  number  of  such  murders  have  been 
committed,  and  no  one  has  been  punished  therefor,  and  manifestly,  as 
to  them,  the  spirit  of  hatred  and  violence  is  stronger  than  the  law. 

"Representations  were  made  to  me  that  the  presence  of  troops  in 
Louisiana  was  unnecessary  and  irritating  to  the  people,  and  that  there  was 
no  danger  of  public  disturbance  if  they  were  taken  away.  Consequently 
early  in  last  summer  the  troops  were  all  withdrawn  from  the  State,  with 
the  exception  of  a  small  garrison  at  New  Orleans  Barracks.  It  was  claimed 
that  a  comparative  state  of  quiet  had  supervened.  Political  excitement 
as  to  Louisiana  affairs  seemed  to  be  dying  out.  But  the  November  elec- 
tion was  approaching,  and  it  was  necessary  for  party  purposes  that  the 
flame  should  be  rekindled. 


".  .  .  Prior  to  and  with  a  view  to  the  late  election  in  Louisiana, 
white  men  associated  themselves  together  in  armed  bodies  called  'White 
Leagues,'  and  at  the  same  time  threats  were  made  in  the  Democratic 
journals  of  the  State  that  the  elections  should  be  carried  against  the 
Republicans  at  all  hazards,  which  very  naturally  greatly  alarmed  the 
colored  voters.  By  Section  8  of  the  act  of  February  28,  1871,  it  is  made 
the  duty  of  United  States  marshals  and  their  deputies,  at  polls  where  votes 
are  cast  for.Representatives  in  Congress,  to  keep  the  peace  and  prevent 
any  violations  of  the  so-called  enforcement  acts,  and  other  offences  against 
the  laws  of  the  United  States;  and  upon  a  requisition  of  the  marshal  of 
Louisiana,  and  in  view  of  said  armed  organizations  and  other  portentous 
circumstances,  I  caused  detachments  of  troops  to  be  stationed  in  various 
localities  in  the  State  to  aid  him  in  the  performance  of  his  official  duties. 
That  there  was  intimidation  of  Republican  voters  at  the  election,  notwith- 
standing these  precautions,  admits  of  no  doubt.  The  following  are  speci- 
mens of  the  means  used: 


180  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"On  the  14th  of  October  eighty  persons  signed  and  published  the  follow- 
ing at  Shreveport: 

"  'We,  the  undersigned,  merchants  of  the  city  of  Shreveport,  in  obedience 
to  a  request  of  the  Shreveport  campaign  club,  agree  to  use  every  endeavor 
to  get  our  employes  to  vote  the  people's  ticket  at  the  ensuing  election; 
and  in  the  event  of  their  refusal  so  to  do,  or  in  case  they  vote  the  radical 
ticket,  to  refuse  to  employ  them  at  the  expiration  of  their  present  con- 
tracts.' 

"On  the  same  day  another  large  body  of  persons  published  in  the  same 
place  a  paper,  in  which  they  used  the  following  language: 

"'We,  the  undersigned,  merchants  of  the  city  of  Shreveport,  alive  to 
the  great  importance  of  securing  good  and  honest  government  to  the  State, 
do  agree  and  pledge  ourselves  not  to  advance  any  supplies  or  money  to 
any  planter  the  coming  year  who  will  give  employment  or  rent  lands  to 
laborers  who  vote  the  radical  ticket  in  the  coming  election.' 

"  I  have  deplored  the  necessity  which  seemed  to  make  it  my  duty  under 
the  Constitution  and  laws  to  direct  such  interference.  I  have  always 
refused  except  where  it  seemed  to  be  my  imperative  duty  to  act  in  such 
manner  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States.  I  have 
repeatedly  and  earnestly  entreated  the  people  of  the  South  to  live  together 
in  peace,  and  obey  the  laws;  and  nothing  would  give  me  greater  pleasure 
than  to  see  reconciliation  and  tranquillity  prevail,  and  thereby  remove 
all  necessity  for  the  presence  of  troops  among  them.  I  regret,  however, 
to  say  that  this  state  of  tilings  does  not  exist,  nor  does  its  existence  seem 
to  be  desired  in  some  localities;  and  as  to  those  it  may  be  proper  for  me  to 
say  that,  to  the  extent  that  Congress  has  conferred  power  upon  me  to 
prevent  it,  neither  Ku-Klux-Klans,  White  Leagues,  nor  any  other  associa- 
tion using  arms  and  violence  to  execute  their  unlawful  purposes,  can  be 
permitted  in  that  way  to  govern  any  part  of  this  country;  nor  can  I  see  with 
indifference  Union  men  or  Republicans  ostracized,  persecuted  and  mur- 
dered on  account  of  their  opinions,  as  they  now  are  in  some  localities. 

"I  have  heretofore  urged  the  case  of  Louisiana  upon  the  attention  of 
Congress,  and  I  cannot  but  think  that  its  inaction  has  produced  great  evil. 

"To  summarize:  In  September  last  an  armed,  organized  body  of  men, 
in  the  support  of  candidates  who  had  been  put  up  in  nomination  for  the 
offices  of  Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor  at  the  November  election, 
in  1872,  and  who  had  been  declared  not  elected  by  the  board  of  canvassers 
recognized  by  all  the  courts  to  which  the  question  had  been  submitted, 
undertook  to  subvert  and  overthrow  the  State  government  that  had  been 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  181 

recognized  by  me,  in  accordance  with  previous  precedents.  The  recognized 
Governor  was  driven  from  the  State  House,  and  but  for  his  finding  shelter 
in  the  United  States  Custom  House,  in  the  capital  of  the  State  of  which 
he  was  Governor,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  he  would  have  been 
killed." 

Even  as  early  as  1871  Southern  conditions  were  (correspond- 
ing to  those  of  to-day)  as  described  by  one  of  our  great  states- 
men: 

"The  old  re'gime  is  reinstated  and  everything,  save  legal  chattelhood, 
is  to  be  restored.  Race  distinction,  class  legislation,  the  dogmas,  that  this 
is  a  white  man's  government,  that  the  negro  belongs  to  an  inferior  race, 
that  capital  shall  control,  if  it  does  not  own,  labor,  are  now  again  in  the 
ascendant,  and  CASTE,  if  slavery  may  not  be,  is  to  be  the  cornerstone  of 
Southern  civilization.  At  least,  this  is  the  avowed  purpose.  'Labor,' 
says  recently  the  governor  of  one  of  the  reconstructed  States,  'must  be 
controlled  by  law.  We  may  hold  inviolate  every  law  of  the  United  States 
and  still  so  legislate  upon  our  labor  system  as  to  retain  our  own  plantation 
system,  or  in  lieu  of  that,  a  baronial  system.*  Clothe  these  statements 
with  power  and  wonder  ceases  that  education  languishes,  that  the  number 
of  schools  diminishes,  that  school  laws  are  repealed  and  rendered  useless, 
and  that  Northern  philanthropy  is  discouraged." — The  Rise  and  Fatt 
of  the  Slave  Power,  Henry  Wilson. 

Referring  to  the  conditions  in  1877  which  are  paralleled 
to-day,  a  former  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  wrote: 

".  .  .  the  South.  .  .  still  bemoans  and  defends  the  'lost  cause  ' 
though  accepting  the  destruction  of  slavery,  still  believes  it  to  be  the  proper 
position  of  an  inferior  race  and  the  cornerstone  of  a  most  desirable  civiliza- 
tion; though  accepting  negro  enfranchisement  because  imposed  by  a 
superior  force,  still  contends  that  this  is  a  white  man's  government  in 
which  the  freedman  have  no  legitimate  part,  and  from  which  they  shall 
be  excluded,  even  if  violence  and  fraud  be  needful  therefor." — The  Rise 
and  Fatt  of  the  Slave  Power,  Henry  Wilson. 

As  still  further  illustrating  conditions  existing  in  the 
South  at  that  period,  we  know  that  colored  people  were,  by 
legal  enactments,  at  the  mercy  of  the  planters.  The  remedy 


182  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

for  such  abuses  was  only  possible  by  the  action  of  the  United 
States. 

Under  local  laws  enacted  by  the  old  regime  laborers  could  be 
arrested  and  punished  for  vagrancy  or  alleged  crime,  even  to 
the  extent  of  punishment  for  breach  of  a  civil  contract.  It 
had  been  made  penal  for  a  laborer  to  leave  his  employer  before 
the  expiration  of  the  term  specified  in  his  labor  contract. 
This  obtained  in  Alabama,  Florida,  Mississippi,  Louisiana 
and  Texas. 

In  some  of  those  States  it  was  an  offence  to  entice  away 
any  laborer  under  contract,  or  to  harbor  or  to  feed  and  clothe 
him.  Civil  officers  were  by  statute  required  to  proceed  by 
force  and  without  process  to  return  to  his  employer  any  such 
deserting  laborer  whom  they  might  arrest. 

To-day  in  certain  localities  this  condition  practically  has  its 
parallel  in  the  administration  of  local  law. 

"When  the  terms  of  re-entrance  to  the  Union  were  accepted,  even  then 
these  party  conspirators  against  popular  government,  no  sooner  had  they 
attained  positions  in  the  grand  old  Union,  than  they  commenced  to  exe- 
cute designs  by  which  the  hands  of  the  power  of  the  oligarchies  of  the 
South  might  again  be  placed  to  the  throat  of  popular  and  representative 
government  in  the  South;  and  soon  again  other  forms  of  revolution,  and 
riot  and  reign  of  terror,  were  employed  to  hoist  the  political  pillage  of  this 
regime  upon  the  liberties  and  national  rights  of  the  masses  in  the  States 
south  of  the  Ohio."  * 

An  illustration  of  these  old  so-called  "black  codes" — which 
are  as  difficult  of  access  to  the  present  student  of  historical 
data  from  original  sources  as  advertisements  of  slave  marts, 
and  which  codes,  but  for  the  benign  interposition  of  the 
United  States  might  still  be  in  force — was  that  in  Mississippi 
a  freedman  might  be  declared  a  vagrant  for  "insulting  gestures " 
or  "exercising  the  function  of  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  without 
a  license  from  some  regular  church";  or  for  freedmen  unlaw- 

*  J.  C.  Manning, 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  183 

fully  assembling  together,  either  by  day  or  night;  or  for  white 
persons  usually  associating  themselves  with  freedmen,  mulattoes, 
etc.,  meaning  thereby  to  hold  in  tribulation  the  white  teachers 
in  colored  schools.  On  failure  to  pay  the  fine  and  costs,  the 
guilty  person  was  to  be  hired  out  by  the  sheriff  to  any  person 
who  would  pay  them  for  him. 

This  has  its  counterpart  to-day.  As  late  as  June,  1907,  ac- 
cording to  an  associated  press  dispatch  from  Nashville,  Tenn.: 
"A  tacit  conclusion  was  reached  by  the  Board  of  Education 
that  only  negroes  born,  bred  and  educated  in  the  South  need 
apply  for  election  as  teachers  in  the  colored  schools  of  this 
city.  This  action  was  taken,  the  Board  says,  for  the  reason 
that  negroes  from  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  have  'notions' 
and  'are  not  familiar  with  Southern  conditions  and  senti- 
ment'!"* 

Under  the  old  "black  codes"  it  was  a  penal  offense  in  Louisi- 
ana to  enter  upon  a  plantation  as  a  visitor  without  permission. 
It  was  a  penal  offense  in  Florida  for  a  negro  to  "intrude  him- 
self into  any  religious  or  other  public  assembly  of  white  persons, 
or  into  a  railroad  car  or  other  public  vehicle  set  apart  for  the 
exclusive  accommodation  of  white  people."  For  such  an 
offense  the  punishment  was  the  pillory  for  one  hour  or  thirty- 
nine  stripes,  or  both,  "at  the  discretion  of  the  jury." 

"Loitering  statutes  were  common.  They  provided  heavy 
fines  of  $50  to  $100  to  be  imposed  upon  any  one  who  was  found 
loitering  without  work.  The  freedmen,  who  had  just  been 
emancipated,  had  neither  work  nor  money.  No  matter  how 
zealously  he  might  seek  employment,  he  was  helpless  if  em- 
ployment should  be  refused  him.  Under  these  statutes  if 

*  A  white  teacher  applying  for  a  position  in  the  South  was  recently  asked  whether 
she  minded  teaching  negroes  and  what  her  views  as  to  negro  education  were.  Upon 
her  replying  that  she  believed  the  colored  children  should  have  equal  educational 
advantages  with  white  children,  she  was  not  given  the  appointment  she  sought.  This 
incident  was  related,  in  the  course  of  a  competition  regarding  school  questions  by 
teachers,  in  a  prominent  weekly  published  in  New  York. 


184  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

found  idle  he  was  a  loiterer,  and  if  he  had  no  money,  as  he  did 
not  have,  with  which  to  pay  his  fines,  he  was  hired  to  the 
highest  bidder,  thus  becoming  bound  to  labor  for  those  who 
had  no  interest  whatever  in  either  his  health  or  his  life  beyond 
the  term  for  which  he  was  hired.  This  brought  about  a  con- 
dition of  things  worse  than  slavery.  By  another  bill  it  was 
provided  that  every  adult  freedman  should  provide  himself 
with  a  comfortable  home  and  visible  means  of  support  within 
twenty  days  after  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  failing  to  do  so 
should  be  hired  at  public  outcry  to  the  highest  bidder  for  the 
period  of  one  year.  By  another  law  it  was  provided  that  all 
agricultural  laborers  should  be  compelled  to  make  contracts 
for  labor  during  the  first  ten  days  of  January  for  the  entire 
year!  All  failing  to  do  so  were  liable  to  heavy  fines  and  severe 
penalties.  Scores  of  like  statutes,  some  of  them  worse  even 
than  these,  were  enacted. 

"It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  spirit  of  this  legislation 
was  not  justice,  but  injustice,  and  that  of  the  most  malicious 
and  revengeful  character."* 

Such  illustrations  indicate  a  type  of  civilization  adapted  to 
a  condition  of  slavery,  but  imposed  after  the  extinction  of 
slavery,  without  its  safeguards  and  in  a  harsher  and  less  re- 
sponsible form.  The  people  of  the  United  States  would  have 
been  cowardly,  unworthy  of  their  heritage,  and  recreant  to 
the  honest  obligations  of  their  successful  war,  had  they  not 
acted  to  extinguish  the  revival  of  such  dangerous  conditions. 
The  reproduction  in  some  quarters  to-day  of  the  equivalent 
of  such  conditions  as  were  common  in  slave  days  is  a  summons 
to  the  performance  of  similar  obligations. 

The  ease  and  facility  with  which  in  certain  sections  of  the 
South  to-day  the  labor,  health  and  life  of  colored  men  may  be 

*  Speech  of  Hon.  J.  B.  Foraker  at  Bellefontaine,  Ohio,  July,  1907.    See  Appendix  G. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  185 

controlled  under  the  guise  of  law  is  without  parallel  in  any 
Christian  country  claiming  to  enjoy  a  stable  government. 
When  incidents  of  that  character  are  described  in  cold  type 
they  are  denied  on  the  floors  of  Congress  and  in  the  local  press, 
no  matter  what  evidence  may  be  produced  in  authentication 
of  individual  statements.  But  the  student  of  history,  consult- 
ing original  sources,  may  reasonably  be  satisfied  concerning 
the  exploits  of  human  nature  under  favorable  conditions.  He 
may  read  the  local  statutes  and  there  ascertain  the  harsh  and 
deadening  methods  of  procedure  claimed  to  be  justified  through 
them.  He  will,  of  course,  not  find  in  these  statutes  all  the 
details  by  which,  for  example,  any  white  man  on  a  highway 
may  require  a  negro  to  show  his  pass  (as  some  of  the  Road  Laws 
did  in  the  time  of  slavery),  but  he  can  learn  from  the  statutes 
themselves  that  a  laborer  under  a  contract  to  a  farmer  may 
be  held  in  durance  vile,  and  under  the  pretext  of  a  judgment 
by  a  justice  on  an  alleged  debt  be  "bound  out"  to  a  legal 
slavery  from  which  anybody  seeking  to  release  him  may,  in 
turn,  be  likewise  prosecuted  for  a  legal  offence!  The  present 
Contract  Law  and  the  Vagrancy  Law  of  the  State  of  Alabama 
show  actual  equivalent  conditions.  By  the  Contract  Law 
of  Alabama  (1900-1)*  a  person  who  has  contracted  in  writing 
for  labor  for  a  certain  time  and  who  fails  to  carry  out  his  con- 
tract, finding  other  work,  is  "guilty  of  a  misdemeanor "  and  may 
be  fined  or  sentenced  to  six  months'  hard  labor,  or  both,  "at 
discretion  of  the  court." 

By  the  Vagrancy  Law  of  Alabama  f  (1903)  any  person  able 
to  work  and  without  property  to  support  him  and  who  does 
not  work  is  liable  to  be  imprisoned  or  fined  $500,  or  both.  The 
Vagrancy  Act  of  1896  imposed  a  fine  of  $10  to  $50  for  the  first 
offence. 

The  present  act  is  therefore  much  more  severe,  and  shows 
the  determination  of  the  plutocracy  to  rule  with  a  rod  of  iron, 

*  See  Appendix  I.  t  See  Appendix  I. 


186  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

and  to  "use  its  power  to  carry  out  its  mission — keep  the  negro 
down,  keep  him  an  inferior,  make  him  a  criminal."  * 

*  "A  Subsidized  North,"  by  W.  S.  Scarborough. 

As  illustrating  the  discriminating  treatment  from  which  white  men  would  be  im- 
mune, it  is  shocking  to  read,  in  a  recent  press  dispatch,  that  nine  colored  convicts  in 
Louisiana  are  to  be  physically  experimented  with,  in  the  alleged  interests  of  science. 
They  are  to  be  fed  with  molasses  three  times  a  day  for  many  days,  and  with  molasses 
mixed  with  sulphuric  acid,  after  the  Federal  pure  food  authorities  have  declared  such 
molasses  to  be  poisonous,  and  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  it  will  poison  these 
colored  convicts.  Even  more  shocking  is  it  to  read  that  the  Federal  Government  is 
an  interested  spectator.  Thus  we  have  medical  tests  made  upon  colored  human  beings 
after  they  have  been  inflicted  with  penalties  prescribed  by  law  in  a  country  where  there 
is  a  strong  movement  against  vivisection  when  practised  upon  frogs. 

"It  ia  nurturing  accumulating  wrongs  for  the  nation  to  avoid  intercession  when  and 
where  only  national  interference  can  restore  and  uplift  the  beaten  down  nationality 
of  the  Southern  citizen." 


XV 

"Do  you  want  shining  mementoes  of  your  victories?  They  are  written 
upon  the  dusky  brow  of  every  freedman  who  was  once  a  slave." — Carl 
Schurz. 

"Out  from  that  fiery  baptism  they  came  .  .  .  ;  and  American  song 
and  story  will  carry  their  heroic  triumph  down  the  highway  of  time  for- 
ever."— Anon. 

The  way  in  which  the  oligarchy  rules  is  by  carrying  out  at 
every  step  of  its  supremacy  a  policy  of  invoking  a  pseudo- 
racial  question.  The  Congressional  delegations  standing  for 
the  South  unfairly  represent  their  great  constituencies  of 
colored  people.  Such  unfair  representation  goes  hand  and 
hand  with  abuse  of  that  race  and  an  extollation  of  the  lost 
cause  and  its  unfounded  co-relation  to  States'  rights,  as  well  as 
with  a  distortion  of  historical  facts  and  the  happenings  and 
results  of  the  war,  one  of  which  was  the  actual  abolition  of 
slavery. 

Those  who  voluntarily  participated  in  the  War  of  the  Re- 
bellion, under  the  flag  of  the  "Confederate  States  of  America," 
were  by  both  sides  commonly  styled  "rebels."  It  may  be  a 
surprise  to  those  who  take  their  information  from  less 
authentic  sources  to  read  what  General  Sherman  said  nearly 
thirty  years  ago: 

"There  are  such  things  as  abstract  right  and  abstract  wrong,  and  when 
history  is  written,  human  actions  must  take  their  place  in  one  or  the 
other  category. 

"  We  claim  that  in  the  great  Civil  War,  we  of  the  national  Union  army 
were  right  and  our  adversaries  wrong;  and  no  special  pleading,  no  excuse, 


188  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

no  personal  motives,  however  pure  and  specious,  can  change  the  verdict 
of  the  war."  * 

To  this  just  claim,  founded  on  axiomatic  truth,  there  un- 
fortunately runs  a  sad  contrast.  The  Executive  and  members 
of  his  Cabinet  are  to-day  continually  extolling,  lauding  and 
"canonizing"  the  Confederate  conductors  of  the  Rebellion. 
Recently  at  Jamestown  the  President  said: 

"Two  generations  passed  before  the  second  crisis  of  our  history  had  to 
be  faced.  Then  came  the  Civil  War.  ...  As  time  clears  away  the 
mists  that  once  shrouded  brother  from  brother,  and  made  each  look  'as 
through  a  glass  darkly  '  at  the  other,  we  can  all  feel  the  same  pride  in  the 
valor,  the  devotion  and  the  fealty  toward  the  right  as  it  was  given  to 
sach  to  see  the  right,  shown  alike  by  the  men  who  wore  the  blue  and  by 
tlie  men  who  wore  the  gray.  Rich  and  prosperous  though  we  are  as  a 
people,  the  proudest  heritage  that  each  of  us  has,  no  matter  where  he 
may  dwell,  North  or  South,  East  or  West,  is  the  immaterial  heritage 
of  feeling,  the  right  to  claim  as  his  own  all  the  valor  and  all  the  steadfast 
devotion  to  duty  shown  by  the  men  of  both  the  great  armies,  of  the  sol- 
diers whose  leader  was  Grant  and  the  soldiers  whose  leader  was  Lee.  The 
men  and  the  women  of  the  Civil  War  did  their  duty  bravely  and  well  in 
the  days  that  were  dark  and  terrible  and  splendid." 

In  a  letter  from  President  Roosevelt  at  the  centenary  of  the 
birth  of  General  Lee  he  commended  that  Confederate  leader 
as  a  "high-minded  citizen"  of  "that  serene  greatness  of  soul 
characteristic  of  those  who  most  readily  recognize  the  obliga- 
tions of  civic  duty." 

On  a  Lee  birthday  celebration  (1905)  the  Governor  of 
Georgia  (Terrell)  had  said  that  he  could  not  respect  him  (Roose- 
velt) "until  he  says  to  the  American  people  he  has  done  wrong 
to  the  memory  of  President  Davis."  Were  the  words  in  the 
above  letter — two  years  afterwards — by  way  of  a  throw  in  that 
direction;  and  how  are  such  sentiments  to  be  reconciled  with 
the  President's  encomiums  on  Lincoln  and  Grant? 

*  Extract  from  a  speech  delivered  by  General  W.  T.  Sherman,  then  in  command  of 
the  Army,  on  Decoration  Day,  May  30,  1878,  in  the  City  of  New  York. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  189 

Such  thoughts,  indeed,  when  uttered  by  men  in  high,  re- 
sponsible positions,  incite  others  with  lesser  mental  calibre  and 
historical  purview  to  such  newspaper  requests  as  one  asking 
that  "the  coming  session  of  Congress  enact  a  law  making  the 
birthdays  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Robert  E.  Lee  national 
holidays!"  * 

Does  the  celebration  of  Lee's  birthday,  and  the  President's 
participation  in  it,  encourage  the  spirit  of  patriotism? 

It  has  become  the  fashion  in  certain  quarters  to  depreciate, 
in  a  spirit  of  melodrama,  the  statement  of  the  right,  and  to 
paint  the  wrong  in  the  colors  of  the  right.  The  burial  of  ani- 
mosities that  arose  out  of  the  war's  conflicts  is  beneficent  and 
laudable.  The  burial  of  principle  is  inexcusable.  There  are 
in  all  things  true  and  false  teachers.  The  true  teachers  portray 
principles  in  bright  colors  and  do  not  mislead  by  displaying 
error  in  imaginative  colors  for  dramatic  effect,  for  rhetorical 
pleasure  or  for  popular  applause. 

In  President  Roosevelt's  speech  at  the  dedication  of  the 
McClellan  statue  he  said: 

"As  Americans,  when  we  glory  in  what  was  done  under  Grant,  Sherman, 
Thomas,  Sheridan,  McClellan,  Farragut,  we  can  no  less  glory  in  the  valor 
and  the  devotion  to  duty,  as  it  was  given  to  them  to  see  the  duty,  of  the 
men  who  fought  under  '  Stonewall '  Jackson  and  the  Johnsons  and  Stewart 
and  Morgan."  f 

The  placing  by  the  President  of  conscripts  of  the  Confed- 
eracy on  a  par  with  Union  Army  volunteers,  and  the  undue 
laudation  of  leaders  who  defied  the  authority  of  the  United 
States  by  sectional  wrong-doing  that  eventually  led  to  war 
and  left  the  graves  of  brave  men  on  both  sides  scattered  all 
over  the  land,  can  be  explained  only  by  an  ignorance  of  the 
history  of  that  momentous  period,  or  a  lack  of  courage  to 
express  truth,  or,  unhappily,  a  misconception,  all  too  common, 
of  historical  fact. 

*  Washington  Post,  Nov.  6,  1905.  t  New  York  Tribune,  May  8,  1907. 


190  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

In  1905,  in  speeches  at  Richmond,  Virginia  and  Roswell, 
Georgia,  the  President  extolled  the  Confederate  leaders  and 
gloried  in  his  own  rebel  kinship.  At  Roswell,  after  referring  to  his 
uncles,  one  of  whom  was  the  youngest  officer  on  the  "  Alabama," 
and  helped  to  fire  the  last  shot  when  she  was  destroyed,  the 
President  said  that  he  had  "the  ancestral  right  to  claim  a 
proud  kinship  with  those  who  showed  their  devotion  to  duty 
as  they  saw  the  duty,  whether  they  wore  the  gray  or  whether 
they  wore  the  blue.  All  Americans  who  are  worthy  of  the 
name  feel  an  equal  pride  in  the  valor  of  those  who  fought  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  provided  only  that  each  did  with  all 
his  strength  and  soul  and  mind  his  duty  as  it  was  given  to  him 
to  see  his  duty  " ! 

The  Washington  Evening  Star  thus  commented  upon  the 
foregoing  utterance: 

"This  from  the  President  of  the  United  States!  .  .  .  This 
is  queer  talk  to  instil  into  the  minds  of  the  rising  generation, 
to  tell  them  that  it  was  as  glorious  to  fire  the  last  shot  against 
their  country's  flag  as  to  fire  against  those  who  wanted  to  tear 
it  down;  that  both  were  right  in  the  Rebellion,  that  the  rebels 
did  'their  duty  as  they  saw  it';  and  that  one  must  excuse  the 
Northerners  for  doing  their  duty  as  they  saw  it !"  * 

The  philosophy  of  the  Roswell  speech  puts  Jefferson  Davis 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  same  plane!  History  does  not 
justify  such  a  parallel. 

The  following  was  published  in  the  Atlanta  Constitution: 

"Theodore  Roosevelt's  mother  was  a  daughter  of  the  South  and  her 
sympathies  were  with  that  section  in  its  struggle  for  existence.  It  was 
just  previous  to  the  firing  of  the  first  gun  at  Sumter  that  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, the  elder,  decided  to  give  a  great  social  function  at  his  New  York  home. 
The  Roosevelt  mansion  was  accordingly  decked  in  bunting  and  with  the 
United  States  flags.  From  every  window,  save  one,  flew  the  Stars  and 

*  One  journalist  has  stated  that  "there  is  no  man  in  the  country  whose  mere  opinion 
on  any  subject  sways  the  popular  mind  as  does  Roosevelt's.  He  defended  his  action 
(for  he  is  psychologically  incapable  of  recognizing  error  on  his  own  part).  .  .  ." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  191 

Stripes.  That  exception  was  Mrs.  Roosevelt's  boudoir  window.  Her 
husband  had  not  desired  to  omit  it  from  the  decorative  scheme,  but  she 
had  a  decoration  plan  of  her  own.  Stopping  not  to  consider  the  peril  in 
which  it  might  place  her  and  her  husband,  she  drew  from  among  her 
cherished  treasures  the  Stars  and  Cross  of  the  Confederacy,  and  going  to 
the  window,  firmly  fixed  its  staff  and  allowed  its  folds  to  flutter  to  the 
breeze.  On  the  instant  almost  the  hostile  ensign  was  noted.  In  hot  indig- 
nation one  observer  pointed  it  out  to  another,  and  a  crowd  speedily  grew, 
as  crowds  will.  Soon  the  street  was  choked  with  angry  people  who  shook, 
threateningly,  fists  at  the  Confederate  flag  and  inveighed  most  bitterly. 
Alarmed  at  the  gathering,  Mr.  Roosevelt  sought  the  cause  that  had  stirred 
the  people  to  anger.  He  was  not  long  in  finding  out.  Fierce  acclaim 
directed  his  gaze  which  rested  upon  the  fluttering  emblem  of  the  South. 
With  a  word  to  the  crowd  he  entered  the  house  to  find  his  wife.  He  told 
her  what  she  already  knew — that  the  anger  of  the  crowd  had  been  excited 
by  her  indiscreet  display  of  the  Southern  colors,  and  said  that  it  would 
be  well  for  her  to  take  in  the  flag. 

" '  I  shall  not  do  so/  said  the  mother  of  the  President.  '  The  flag  is  mine ; 
the  boudoir  is  mine ;  I  love  the  flag,  for  it  represents  my  native  land.  Ex- 
plain to  them  that  I  am  a  Southern  woman;  that  I  love  the  South.  Do 
anything  you  like  except  touch  the  flag.  It  shall  not  come  down.'  And 
it  did  not.  Theodore  Roosevelt  went  again  to  face  the  crowd.  He 
dwelt  with  finesse  upon  his  wife's  love  for  her  native  land,  and  moulded 
the  gathering  to  his  will  and  to  an  indulgence  of  Mrs.  Roosevelt  in  her 
desire  to  fly  the  flag  of  her  beloved  South.  The  crowd  dispersed.  The 
story  remains  to  show  an  emotional  quality  that  has  made  a  President. ..." 

President  Roosevelt  speaks  with  equal  pride  of  his  Southern  and 
Northern  ancestors.* 

In  response  to  an  invitation  to  be  a  guest  of  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston,  camp  Confederate  Veterans,  Paris,  Texas,  the 
President  wrote,  in  part: 

"Personally  I  had  kinsmen  on  both  sides.  Two  of  my  mother's 
brothers  fought  in  the  Confederate  service ;  one,  by  the  way,  served  on  the 
'  Alabama '  under  Admiral  Semmes,  the  father  of  the  wife  of  that  gallant 
ex-Confederate  Luke  Wright,  whom  I  made  Governor  of  the  Philippines. 
It  was  but  the  other  day  that  I  designated  the  only  living  grandson  of 
Stonewall  Jackson  as  a  cadet  at  West  Point,  and  have  just  made  Jeb 
Stuart  U.  S.  Marshal  for  the  Eastern  District  of  Virginia." 

*  From  Harrison,  "Stars  and  Stripes  and  other  American  Flags." 


192  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

How  did  General  Sherman  regard  the  leaders  in  the  Con- 
federate cause?  Did  he  honor  the  memory  of  "traitors  against 
the  government  of  the  United  States," — to  quote  the  words  of 
President  Johnson  in  his  Proclamation  of  May  2,  1865,  after 
the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  attempted 
assassination  of  Secretary  of  State  Seward? 

In  that  proclamation  (13  Stat.  756)  the  following  statements 
occur: 

It  appeared  from  evidence  in  the  bureau  of  military  justice 
that  the  atrocious  murder  of  the  late  President  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  the  attempted  assassination  of  Honorable  William 
H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  were  incited,  concerted  and 
procured  by  and  between  Jefferson  Davis,  late  of  Richmond, 
Jacob  Thompson,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Beverly  Tucker,  George 
N.  Saunders  and  William  C.  Cleary  (late  clerk  of  Clement  C. 
Clay),  "  and  other  rebels  and  traitors  against  the  government 
of  the  United  States  harbored  in  Canada."  President  Johnson 
offered  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  the  case  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  each  in  the  case  of  Thomp- 
son, Clay,  Tucker  and  Saunders,  and  ten  thousand  dollars  in 
the  case  of  Cleary,  "for  the  arrest  of  such  persons,  or  either  of 
them,  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  so  that  they  can 
be  brought  to  trial."  The  President  directed  the  Provost 
Marshal-General  of  the  United  States  to  cause  a  description 
of  said  persons,  with  notice  of  the  above  reward,  to  be  published 
widely.  At  that  time  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  co-conspirators 
were  fugitives  from  justice,  trying  to  escape  to  Mexico. 

In  truth,  there  is  altogether  too  much  "canonization"  of 
the  Confederate  cause,  a  forgetting  of  the  barbarities  that  were 
perpetrated  at  that  period.  The  restoration  of  the  spirit  and 
animus  that  gave  birth  to  the  Confederacy,  with  a  present  fixed 
purpose  to  dominate  United  States  action  and  authority  in  a 
section  of  United  States  territory,  may,  in  some  respects,  be 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  193 

deemed  a  greater  achievement  of  the  Confederate  sentiment 
than  would  have  been  the  actual  establishment  of  a  separate 
Confederacy.  But  it  does  not  seem  to  be  the  business  of  any- 
body to  foreclose  such  an  achievement!  The  mighty  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  too  large  and  generous  and  be- 
neficent to  permit  its  agencies  to  give  heed  to  the  growth  of  such 
noxious  weeds.  No  other  government  in  the  world  would 
permit  statues  to  be  erected  within  its  boundaries  to  com- 
memorate the  leaders  of  a  cause,  inspired  as  that  one  was, 
and  conducted  as  it  was,  to  overthrow  the  whole  structure 
of  the  United  States  and  its  society.  It  certainly  does  not 
promote  the  perpetuity  or  prosperity  of  the  whole  country 
to  exalt  into  a  virtue  the  aims  behind  that  destructive 
attempt,  and  to  extol  the  men  who  devised  and  conducted 
it  through  rivers  of  blood.  To  sentimentalize  such  a  cause  and 
its  vicious  purposes  and  practices,  and  to  assign  imaginary  vir- 
tues to  the  political  and  military  leaders  who  pursued  their  career 
of  selfishness — though  at  the  risk,  as  they  well  knew,  of  their 
heads — is  to  permit  and  solidify  a  permanent  sectionalism  aimed 
now,  as  once  before,  to  achieve  the  dominance  of  its  localisms, 
in  abrogation  of  national  conceptions  and  established  purposes. 
No  one  has  ever  objected  to  a  recognition  of  soldierly 
qualities  in  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy;  neither  has  there 
been  denied  the  meed  that  is  always  accorded  to  true 
valor;  but  it  ought  not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  that  treachery  and 
deceit  likewise  existed  as  a  not  unusual  Confederate  weapon, 
even  on  the  field  of  battle!  In  an  official  report  on  one  of  the 
early  great  engagements  of  the  war,  Major-General  Heintzelman, 
commanding  the  Third  Army  Corps,  officially  speaking  of  the 
Battle  of  Williamsburg,  May  5,  1862,  quotes  a  report  of  one 
of  his  regimental  commanders,  who,  referring  to  one  of  the 
incidents  in  the  crisis  of  that  battle,  says: 

"The  rebel  barbarian  in  command  extended  a  white  flag,  and  cried 
out  to  him  (Captain  Drown),  'Don't  fire,  don't  fire,  we  are  friends  I'  at 


194  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  same  time  directing  his  men  to  trail  their  arms.  Captain  Drown, 
believing  they  were  about  to  surrender,  directed  his  men  not  to  fire,  where- 
upon the  whole  body  of  the  enemy  suddenly  fired  upon  him,  killing  him 
instantly  and  also  several  of  his  men."  .  .  .  General  Heintzelman  then 
goes  on  to  say: 

"Another  instance  of  cowardice  and  treachery  is  related  in  Colonel 
Blaisdell's  report  of  the  Eleventh  Massachusetts  as  having  occurred  in 
front  of  his  regiment: 

"'While  the  regiment  was  engaged  on  the  left  of  the  road,  at  not  more 
than  fifty  yards,  a  rebel  officer  displayed  a  white  flag,  crying  out,  'Don't 
fire  on  your  friends.'  When  I  ordered  'Cease  firing,'  and  Private  Michael 
Doherty,  of  Company  A,  stepped  forward  to  get  the  flag,  and  when  near 
it,  the  officer  said  to  his  men,  'Now,  give  it  to  them.'  The  men  obeyed, 
firing  and  severely  wounding  Private  Doherty,  who  immediately  returned 
the  fire,  shooting  the  officer  through  the  heart,  thus  rewarding  him  for 
his  mean  treachery. 

"Some  of  our  wounded  men  were  bayoneted  by  the  rebels,  and  a  New 
Jersey  captain  was  found  bayoneted  and  his  ears  cut  off.  There  are  other 
cases.  .  .  ."  * 

There  were  many  corresponding  cases,  one,  for  instance, 
found  in  the  report  of  the  distinguished  Cavalry  Commander, 
Brigadier-General  Alfred  Pleasanton,  concerning  an  occurrence 
in  a  crisis  at  the  battle  of  Chancellorsville,  May  2,  1863: 

"It  was  now  near  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  and  in  rear  of  the  Eleventh 
Corps  the  rebels  came  on  rapidly,  but  in  silence,  with  that  skill  and  adroit- 
ness they  often  display  to  gain  their  object.  The  only  color  visible  was  a 
Union  flag,  with  the  centre  battalion.  To  clear  up  the  doubt  created  by 
this  flag,  my  aide-de-camp,  Lieutenant  Clifford  Thomson,  of  the  First 
New  York  Cavalry,  rode  to  within  a  hundred  yards  of  them,  when  they 
called  out  to  him,  'We  are  friends;  come  on';  and  he  was  induced  to  go 
fifty  yards  nearer,  when  their  whole  line  opened  with  musketry,  dropped 
the  Union  color,  displayed  eight  or  ten  rebel  battle-flags,  and  commenced 
advancing."f 

Men  in  military  authority  in  the  Confederate  army,  as 
well  as  private  soldiers,  were  often  chivalrous  t  and  brave; 

*  From  "Official  Records  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,"  Series  I.,  Vol.  XI.,  Part  I. 
Reports,  p.  459. 

t  From  "Official  Records  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,"  Vol.  XXV.,  Part  I.,  p.  775. 
$  Such  a  line  officer  once  spared  the  writer  from  the  cruel  bayonet. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  195 

but  this  did  not  prevent  or  remedy  barbarous  cruelties, 
which  one  commanding  word  from  those  in  supreme  authority 
would  have  caused  immediately  to  cease.  Those  cruelties 
were  indefensible.  It  was  not  necessary,  as  an  incident  of 
war,  neither  did  it  serve  any  legitimate  military  purpose 
whatsoever,  for  example,  that  31,678  men  should  be  cooped  up 
in  a  stockade  on  thirteen  acres  of  ground, — less  than  a  farmer 
gives  as  playground  for  half-a-dozen  colts  or  a  small  flock  of 
sheep — and  where  there  was  scarcely  room  for  all  to  sleep  at 
night,  to  say  nothing  of  what  would  have  happened  to  a 
man  attempting  to  walk  a  few  hundred  feet  in  any  direction 
among  prone  and  prostrate  men.*  Yet  it  was  upon  beings 
thus  helpless  that  the  Brigadier-General  charged  with  their 
custody  ordered  the  battery  of  Florida  Artillery  stationed 
there,  "upon  receiving  notice  that  the  enemy  has  approached 
within  seven  miles  of  this  post,"  to  open  upon  this  stockade 
with  grape-shot,  "without  reference  to  the  situation  beyond 
the  lines  of  defence."! 

At  one  time  at  this  Andersonville  stockade  as  many  as  three 
thousand  horrible  deaths  were  occurring  per  month,  under  a 
commander  selected  from  among  the  confidential  friends  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  Davis,  who  himself  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of 
the  practices  which  enabled  this  subordinate  to  boast,  "lam 
killing  off  more  Yankees  than  twenty  regiments  in  these  (the 
Yankee)  armies. "J 

And  this,  notwithstanding  the  suggestion  of  the  horror- 
struck  visiting  inspector,  "  that  the  prisoners  be  given  at  least 
more  room",  the  general  in  charge  replied  nonchalantly 
that  "he  intended  to  leave  matters  just  where  they  were;  the 
operations  of  death  would  soon  thin  out  the  crowd,  so  that 
the  survivors  would  have  sufficient  room." 

*  McElroy,  Andersonville,  p.  260. 

t  Order  of   Brigadier-General   John   H.   Winder,   commanding  Andersonville,  Ga., 
July  27.  1864. 

t  McElroy.  p.  651  $  Ibid. 


196  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

The  policy  and  conditions  thus  shown  seem  to  have  been  the 
fulfilment  of  a  declaration  made  and  rendered  prophetic  when 
Mr.  Robert  Quid,  the  Confederate  Commissioner  of  Exchange, 
officially  wrote,  March  17,  1863,  respecting  the  conclusion  of 
his  negotiations  with  the  United  States  authorities  for  the 
exchange  of  prisoners:  "The  arrangement  I  had  made  works 
largely  in  our  favor.  We  get  rid  of  a  set  of  miserable  wretches, 
and  receive  some  of  the  best  material  I  ever  saw!"  * 

It  was  obviously  a  continuous  policy  to  get  rid  of  such 
"miserable  wretches"  as  United  States  soliders  became  when 
prisoners  of  war.  It  accorded  with  such  policy  that  resort 
was  had  to  barbarities  innumerable,  as,  for  example,  when  it 
was  ordered  f  that  twenty-five  guns  should  be  opened,  J  with 
grape  and  canister  at  two  hundred  yards'  range,  upon  a  mass 
of  30,000  prisoners,  mostly  sick  and  dying,  rather  than  run  a 
possible  chance  of  rescue  at  the  approach  of  a  Northern  army 
advancing  in  force. 

The  same  arrogant  commander  turned  back  a  domestic 
train  of  provisions  contributed  by  neighboring  residents,  whose 
hearts  full  of  sympathy  went  out  to  the  starving  wretches 
whom  in  their  humanity  they  wished  thus  to  succor.^f 

*  Ibid,  p.  653.  t  July  27,  1864.  J  Ibid,  p.  651. 

If  "The  probability  is  that  neither  Winder  nor  his  direct  superiors,  Howell  Cobb 
and  Jefferson  Davis,  conceived  in  all  its  proportions  the  gigantic  engine  of  torture  and 
death  they  were  organizing,  nor  did  they  comprehend  the  enormity  of  the  crime  they 
were  committing.  But  they  were  willing  to  do  much  wrong  to  gain  their  end;  and  the 
smaller  crimes  of  to-day  prepared  them  for  greater  ones  to-morrow  and  still  greater 
ones  the  day  following.  Killing  ten  men  a  day  at  Belle  Isle  in  January  by  starvation 
and  hardship  led  very  easily  to  killing  one  hundred  men  a  day  in  Andersonville  in 
July,  August  and  September.  Probably  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  they  would  have 
felt  uneasy  at  slaying  one  man  per  day  by  such  means,  but  as  retribution  came  not, 
and  as  their  appetite  for  slaughter  grew  with  feeding,  and  as  their  sympathy  with 
human  misery  atrophied  from  long  suppression,  they  ventured  upon  ever-widening 
ranges  of  destructiveness." — McElrcy,  p.  565. 

Aa  Alexander  Pope  puts  it: 

"Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  frightful  mien. 
As,  to  be  hated,  needs  but  to  be  seen; 
Yet  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  197 

History  records  not,  it  is  believed,  in  the  annals  of  civilized 
warfare  any  parallel  to  the  malign  cruelties  of  the  Con- 
federate powers.  The  "unwritten  law"  of  chivalrous  mag- 
nanimity and  the  amenities  that  even  in  war  are  shown  were, 
except  by  honorable  soldiers  in  the  field,  often  utterly  disre- 
garded, and  horrors  were  consequently  allowed  and  cruelties 
perpetrated  that  might  have  been  avoided,  if  it  was  desired 
to  avoid  them.  That  it  was  not  so  desired  is  perfectly  estab- 
lished by  one  fact,  that  the  Commanding  Officer  at  Anderson- 
ville,  apparently  solely  responsible,  was  indeed  the  appointed 
representative  of  central  authority  to  whom  he  reported  di- 
rectly without  the  intervention  of  superior  officers,  who  were 
fully  informed  of  his  acts  through  other  sources  than  himself. 
Of  course,  there  is  no  question  under  such  circumstances  where 
the  actual  responsibility  lay.  It  was  a  representative  per- 
formance— the  not  unnatural  outcome  of  the  conditions  of 
one  of  the  civilizations  engaged  in  the  irrepressible  collisions 
of  war.  Perhaps  it  will  yet  be  admitted  as  historically  true, — 
as  one  observant  writer  suggests, — that  "men  capable  of  doing 
all  that  the  Secession  leaders  were  guilty  of,  both  before  and 
during  the  war,  were  quite  capable  of  revengefully  destroying 
thousands  of  their  enemies  by  the  most  hideous  means  at  their 
command."  * 

Ignoring  historical  truth  does  not  obliterate  its  lessons. 
Well,  therefore,  may  this  same  writer  exclaim:  "The  crowning 
blemish  of  Southern  society  has  ever  been  the  dumb  acquies- 
cence of  the  many  respectable,  well-disposed,  right-thinking 
people,  in  the  acts  of  a  turbulent  and  unscrupulous  few.  From 
this  direful  spring  has  flowed  an  Iliad  of  unnumbered  woes, 
not  only  to  that  section  but  to  our  common  country,  "f 

*  Ibid.  p.  648. 

t  McElroy,  "Fifteen  Months  in  the  Confederacy,"  p.  647. 

This  author  goes  on  to  say,  "It  was  this  that  kept  the  South  vibrating  between  patriot- 
ism and  treason  during  the  Revolution,  so  that  it  cost  more  lives  and  treasure  to  main- 
tain the  struggle  there  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  country.  It  was  this  that  threatened 


198  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Notwithstanding  the  record  of  the  action  of  the  South  before 
and  during  the  time  of  the  war,  and  in  spite  of  the  Southern 
defects  that  permitted  such  wrongs  to  be  perpetrated,  the 
compiler  of  these  pages  still  adheres  to  what  he  wrote  as  far 
back  as  1865  respecting  the  conduct  of  the  Confederate  army  as 
soldiers  in  the  field.  At  that  time,  writing  one  of  the  corps  of 
the  "Army  of  Northern  Virginia,"  he  said: 

"Its  history  is  one  of  valor,  hardships,  suffering,  victory, 
tenacity  and  final  defeat.  Its  military  discipline  was  most 
vigorous  and  exemplary,  its  confidence  and  self-reliance  a 
pride  and  boast  among  its  members,  its  bravery  never  ques- 
tioned, its  fortitude,  endurance  and  heroism  worthy  of  the 
nation  to  which  its  men  belonged,  and  against  whose  justice, 
beneficence  and  righteous  power  they  most  wickedly  rebelled."* 

the  dismemberment  of  the  Union  in  1832.  It  was  this  that  aggravated  and  envenomed 
every  wrong  growing  out  of  slavery;  that  outraged  liberty,  debauched  citizenship, 
plundered  the  mints,  gagged  the  press,  stifled  speech,  made  opinion  a  crime,  polluted 
the  free  soil  of  God  with  the  unwilling  step  of  the  bondman,  and  at  last  crowned  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  of  this  unparalleled  iniquity  by  dragging  eleven  millions  of 
people  into  a  war  from  which  their  souls  revolted,  and  against  which  they  had  declared, 
by  overwhelming  majorities  in  every  State  except  South  Carolina,  where  the  people 
had  no  voice.  It  may  puzzle  some  to  understand  how  a  relatively  small  band  of 
political  desperadoes  in  each  State  could  accomplish  such  a  momentous  wrong;  that 
they  did  doit,  no  one  conversant  with  our  history  will  deny,  and  that  they — insignificant 
as  they  were  in  numbers,  in  abilities,  in  character,  in  everything  save  capacity  and 
indomitable  energy  in  mischief — could  achieve  such  gigantic  wrongs  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  better  sense  of  their  communities, is  a  fearful  demonstration  of  the  defects  of 
the  constitution  of  Southern  society." 

*  H.  E.  Tremain,  "Last  Hours  of  Sheridan's  Cavalry,"  p.  157;  quoted  from  the 
Nashville  American,  Feb.  1,  1905,  and  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  Dec.  18,  1905. 

This  is  simply  a  narration  of  history;  for,  as  Junius  Henri  Browne  expresses  it:  "All 
history,  public  and  private,  recounts  the  courage,  fortitude  and  sufferings  of  soldiers 
on  the  field." 


XVI 

"Facts  are  chiels  that  winna  gang 
And  daurna  be  disputed." — Burns. 

"Any  measure  which  the  safety  of  the  conqueror  dictates  is  not  cruel. 
Any  measure  which  guarantees  a  peace  bought  with  such  a  price,  common 
sense  dictates  that." — Wendell  Phillips. 

The  yielding  to  claims  made  in  behalf  of  parties  sup- 
posed to  have  suffered  loss  during  the  war,  by  acts  of 
Congress,  passed  and  proposed  since  the  present  Chief  Execu- 
tive came  into  power,  is  another  of  many  indications  of 
a  partisan  timidity  that  contradicts  General  Sherman's  defini- 
tion of  courage,*  and  betokens  a  condition  of  sentiment  that 
does  not  make  for  the  best  interests  of  the  nation. 

One  incidental  effect  upon  Congress  of  the  unfortunate 
influences  of  the  concentration  of  power  for  good  or  for  evil 
in  the  potential  group  of  Southern  representatives,  acquiesced 
in  by  a  sympathetic  Executive,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Con- 
gressional appropriations,  and  in  the  variety  and  extent  of  the 
demands  for  such  appropriations. 

Both  in  the  Fifty-eighth  and  Fifty-ninth  Congresses,  as  well 
as  in  previous  Congresses,  striking  illustrations  of  the  growth 
of  such  demands  occurred.  No  individual  instance,  how- 
ever, of  generosity,  or  of  gift,  can  parallel  the  appropriation  of 
$3,950,  directed  to  be  paid  to  John  S.  Mosby,  without  official 

*  "I  would  define  true  courage  to  be  a  perfect  sensibility  of  the  measure  of  danger, 
and  a  mental  willingness  to  incur  it,  rather  than  that  insensibility  of  danger  of  which 
I  have  heard  far  more  than  I  have  seen.  The  most  courageous  men  are  generally 
unconscious  of  possessing  the  quality;  therefore,  when  one  professes  it  too  openly,  by 
words  or  bearing,  there  is  reason  to  mistrust  it." — (Memoirs,  Vol.  2,  chap.  XXIV,  p.  395.) 


200  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

investigation,  or  the  determination  of  any  court  of  law  or 
of  any  commission.  According  to  the  bill  reported  by  the 
Claims  Committee  of  the  Senate,  this  appropriation  was  for 
tobacco  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States  military  forces, 
which  tobacco  was  marked  in  the  name  of  "John  S.  Mosby." 
Under  general  orders  of  the  War  Department  affecting  captured 
and  abandoned  property,  that  tobacco  was  transferred  by  the 
United  States  military  Quartermaster  to  a  special  agent  of  the 
Treasury  authorized  to  deal  with  such  matters,  who,  in  turn, 
mentioned  the  item  in  a  certain  official  paper  purporting  to 
give  a  "List  of  captured  tobacco  marked  in  the  name  of 
Colonel  John  S.  Mosby,  transferred  to  Colonel  J.  S.  Loornis, 
Treasury  Agent,  June  7,  1865." 

That  paper,  discovered  upon  the  files  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment, was  ingeniously  made  the  basis  of  an  application  to 
Congress;  and,  forty  years  after  the  war,  in  a  bill  known  as 
the  Omnibus  Claims  Bill,  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Claims 
to  the  United  States  Senate  on  January  4,  1905,  there  was  a 
paragraph  providing  that  this  "claim"  might  be  referred  to 
the  Court  of  Claims  "with  full  jurisdiction  to  try  and  adjudicate 
said  claim  and  render  judgment  against  the  United  States  in 
such  sum  as  may  be  found  just  by  said  Court,  without  the 
interposition  on  behalf  of  the  Government  of  any  bar  arising 
from  the  existing  Statutes  of  Limitations"!  Instead  of  enact- 
ing this  clause  without  regard  to  the  Statutes  of  Limitations, 
the  following  clause  was  enacted,  as  will  be  seen  by  reference 
to  Vol.  35,  United  States  Statutes  at  Large,  in  an  appropriation 
act  approved  February  24,  1905:  "To  John  S.  Mosby,  of  Vir- 
ginia, the  sum  of  $3,950,  being  value  of  7,900  Ibs.,  more  or  less, 
of  tobacco  taken  and  used  (?)  by  the  United  States  military 
forces  in  the  year  1865!"  That  it  was  not  so  used  is  clear,  it 
having  been  relinquished  by  the  military,  and  "  transferred  " 
to  the  civil,  authorities. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  recipient  of  this  gracious 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  201 

favor  achieved  his  eminence  as  a  partisan  leader  in  guerilla 
warfare,  but  who  was  nevertheless  treated,  after  the  surrenders, 
as  an  ordinary  prisoner  of  war,  and  offered  and  received  his 
parole  as  such,  and  who  has  since,  with  remarkable  continuity, 
profited  by  lucrative  Federal  offices,  the  astonishment  becomes 
all  the  greater.  What  public  purpose,  if  any,  can  be  served 
by  liberal  gifts  of  this  sort  from  a  victorious  foe,  and  by  the 
described  departure  from  established  usage  and  procedure? 
Instead  of  allaying  sectional  spirit,  such  successful  demands 
upon  the  Treasury,  without  regard  to  the  usages  of  war,  pro- 
mote, foster  and  encourage  such  a  spirit. 

Other  illustrations  of  the  same  intent  and  of  a  more  or  less 
concerted  character  can  be  discovered  in  Congressional  history. 
For  instance,  there  remains  still  in  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  $4,690,774.79, according  to  analysis  of  the  official  report* 
of  Treasury  Department  by  Mr.  H.  A.  Taylor,  Assistant  Secre- 
tary of  Treasury,  dated  January  9,  1900— but  $10,000,000 

*This  circular  further  shows  that  by  the  Treasury  records  the  claimants  for  this 
balance  of  cotton  proceeds,  whatever  it  is,  "had  sold  the  cotton  to  the  Confederate 
government,  and  therefore  it  was  not  'individual  cotton'  when  seized  after  June  30, 
1865,"  as  most  of  it  was,  "  but  was  the  property  of  the  Confederate  government." 

As  to  cotton  being  the  "sinews  of  war"  for  the  South,  it  could  only  have  been  so 
regarded  in  Europe  by  the  uninformed  investors  in  Confederate  bonds  or  those  who 
accepted  them  in  payment  of  cargoes  for  blockade-runners.  On  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
our  publicists  should  have  been  better  informed  as  to  the  Southern  "sinews  of  war." 
The  system  of  Confederate  financiering  left  the  cotton  sold  by  the  planters  to  the  prod- 
uce agents  of  the  Confederate  authorities  in  the  hands  of  the  planters  themselves  as 
bailees.  It  was  stored  in  their  gin-houses  for  the  Confederate  government  and  kept 
there  under  contract  to  deliver  it  to  the  order  of  the  Confederate  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
when  so  called  upon,  or  to  his  indorsees,  upon  presentation  of  the  "Produce  Certificates." 
There  are  enough  of  these  produce  certificates  now  in  the  files  of  the  Miscellaneous 
Division  of  the  Treasury  Department  to  convince  any  disinterested  person  of  ordinary 
good  judgment  that  at  the  time  of  the  surrender  of  General  Lee's  army  to  General 
Grant,  at  Appomattox,  the  Confederate  government  must  have  been  the  owner  of  every 
bale  of  cotton  in  the  South,  and  most  probably  also  of  all  the  surplus  tobacco,  rice, 
sugar,  molasses,  sirup  and  naval  stores  in  the  rebellious  States;  and  also  that  it  owned 
all  such  products  that  had  been  captured  by  our  armies  and  navy.  It  would  therefore 
follow  that  the  claims  for  every  pound  of  cotton,  sugar,  etc.,  the  proceeds  of  which 
were  restored  to  alleged  "loyal"  owners,  as  well  as  the  claims  for  the  net  proceeds  of 
such  property,  for  which  judgments  have  been  obtained  by  claimants  in  the  Court  of 
Claims  under  the  abandoned  and  captured  property  act  of  March  12,  1863,  were  prob- 
ably frauds  upon  the  United  States, 


202  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

according  to  a  recent  statement  of  a  Congressional  Committee 
— the  proceeds  of  property  in  part  claimed  to  be  Confederate 
Government  assets,  as  nearly  all  of  the  cotton  virtually  was, 
the  proceeds  of  sales  of  "captured  and  abandoned  property" 
taken  over  by  the  United  States  military  forces  from  its  enemies 
in  war.  Even  during  hostilities  it  was  enacted  by  Congress 
that,  under  certain  circumstances  and  within  prescribed  limi- 
tations of  time,  innocent  individuals  who  deemed  themselves 
to  have  suffered  might  submit  their  claims  to  the  Court  of 
Claims,  whose  judgments  were  to  be  reported  for  Congressional 
action.  The  object  of  this  enactment  was  to  compensate  those 
who  had  suffered  undeserved  injury  and  could  prove  their 
continuous  loyalty  to  the  United  States.  Millions  of  dollars 
have  been  appropriated  by  Congress  *  in  response  to  such 
reports.  The  limit  of  time  for  filing  and  prosecuting  such 
claims  has  long  since  expired.  Claimants  have  made  briefs 
to  the  contrary.  Congress  after  Congress  has  been  besought 
to  repeal  this  statute  of  limitation.  Technical  reasons  have 
been  submitted;  and  private  ownership  of  property  concern- 
ing which  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  it  was  used  in  aid 
of  rebellion  against  the  United  States — for  all  the  cotton  was 
so  circumstanced — has  been  advanced  as  the  basis  of  such 
appropriation.  Personal  appeals  have  been  made  to  the 
President  in  behalf  of  legislation  to  repeal  the  Statute  of  Limita- 
tions. A  few  days  before  the  close  of  the  last  Congress,  such 
a  bill  f  was  introduced  by  the  minority  leader  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  in  the  Senate  by  way  of  amendment  to  a 
pending  appropriation  bill  by  the  Senator  (Bacon)  from  Georgia. 
At  last,  as  a  result  of  continued  and  persistent  agitation  in 
Congressional  circles,  it  is  definitely  urged  in  influential  quarters 
that  all  claims  against  this  captured  and  abandoned  property 
fund  in  the  Treasury  may  at  this  late  day  be  referred  to  the 
Court  of  Claims  irrespective  of  the  Statute  of  Limitations, 

*  See  Appendix  K.  t  Cong.  Rec.,  p.  2345.     [H.  R.  25,400  ] 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  203 

and  that  upon  the  Court  of  Claims'  reports  there  should  be  an 
appropriation  distributing  to  the  claimants  pro  rata  all  the 
remnant  of  that  fund  now  lying  in  the  United  States  Treasury, 
where  in  justice  and  propriety  it  permanently  belongs. 

Of  course,  in  the  reception  and  consideration  of  any  such 
appropriation  by  legislators,  or  by  an  Executive  who  is  ex- 
pected to  sign  such  a  measure,  it  must  be  seriously  contended 
that  under  the  laws  of  war  and  of  international  usages,  and 
treating  our  enemies  as  belligerents,  property  captured 
from  the  enemy,  or  the  proceeds  of  it,  should  as  a  matter  of 
right  be  returned  to  private  owners!  That  proposition  is 
repugnant  to  accepted  usages  under  the  laws  of  war.  It  is 
true  that  as  a  matter  of  generosity  the  United  States  established 
a  system  under  which,  for  a  reasonable  time  only,  cases  of  inno- 
cent hardship  might  be  officially  investigated  and  provided 
for,  at  the  discretion  of  the  United  States;  but  why  more  than 
forty  years  afterwards  this  should  be  done  is  incomprehensible, 
except  upon  the  theory  that  there  is  a  just  and  a  sound  political 
reason  for  the  United  States  to  pursue  such  an  extravagant 
favoritism.  Is  there  such  a  reason? 

Another  unfortunate  illustration  of  this  general  trend  is 
found  in  the  attempt  begun  about  twenty  years  after  the  war 
to  wring  from  the  United  States  Treasury  moneys  that  were 
turned  into  it  because  they  were  taken  possession  of  by  a 
Commanding  General  who  rightly  demanded  that  all  holders 
of  Confederate  moneys  should  pay  them  over  to  the  United 
States.  Specious  technical  pleas  have  been  made  from  time 
to  time  that  the  Commanding  General  was  in  error  when 
he  insisted  that  the  Citizens'  Bank  of  Louisiana  should  pay 
over  to  him  in  current  funds  deposits  that  the  bank  held  belong- 
ing to  the  Confederacy — which  deposits  were  in  no  sense  private 
funds  but  property  belonging  to  the  Confederate  Government 
— and  had  been  officially  made  in  current  funds. 

These    deposits    had   been   made   in   currency  that   repre- 


204  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

sented  value,  including  the  bank's  own  notes  of  issue.  Strange 
to  say,  the  agents  of  this  claim  went  so  far  as  recently  to  petition 
the  President  of  the  United  States  as  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  Army  to  direct  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  pay  out 
the  amount  which  that  Commanding  General  (Butler)  had 
turned  into  the  Treasury  from  those  deposits.  The  President 
(Roosevelt)  asked  his  Attorney-General  for  an  opinion.  The 
Attorney-General,  of  course,  replied  that  the  Executive  had  no 
such  power  over  the  Treasury.  In  his  reply,  however,  the 
Attorney-General  extended  his  opinion  so  far  as  to  assert  that 
the  collection  of  this  money  by  the  United  States  Commanding 
General  in  current  funds  "was  entirely  unwarranted  and  un- 
authorized, and  through  said  act  the  United  States  had  no 
claim  or  title  thereto."  If  this  assertion  has  any  significance 
— which  it  has  not,  because  it  is  what  lawyers  call  obiter  dicta 
— it  means  that  the  United  States  had  no  right  to  the  assets 
of  the  Confederate  Government,  of  which  those  deposits  were 
a  part — a  proposition  utterly  foreign  to  any  established  usage 
and  to  international  law.  The  effect  of  such  a  careless  expres- 
sion— for  it  can  scarcely  be  deemed  other  than  careless,  coming 
from  a  man  since  rewarded  by  a  seat  upon  the  bench  of  the 
highest  court  in  the  world — has  been  (on  the  allegation  that  the 
Confederate  funds  were  deposited  in  Confederate  money  (?), 
which  was  then  the  currency  of  the  place  and  did  represent 
true  value)  an  attempt  to  defend  this  view,  and  to  enable  a  still 
more  careless  Senate  Committee  on  Claims  to  put  through  a 
careless  Senate  a  bill  directing  the  Treasury  to  pay  to  the 
Citizens'  Bank  of  Louisiana  the  sum  of  $215,820.89.* 

One  more  illustration  of  sectional  favoritism  f  with  Treasury 
money  is  exhibited  by  a  special  bill  J  by  which  $50,000  was 
at  first  appropriated  to  pay  for  horses  and  equipments  alleged 

*  For  further  particulars,  if  the  reader  wishes  to  pursue  the  subject,  see  Appendix  L. 
t  See  Note  at  end  of  this  chapter. 

%  Chapter  XXXIV  of  the  Act  of  Congress  approved  by  President  Roosevelt,  Feb. 
27.  1902.  See  also  Appendix  M. 


205 

to  have  been  taken  by  the  United  States  military  forces  from 
Confederate  soldiers,  "in  violation"  of  the  terms  of  surrender 
and  under  the  orders  of  United  States  officers!  This  bill 
appears  to  be  grounded  upon  an  allegation  that  the  terms  of 
the  Confederate  surrender  had  been  violated  by  the  United 
States,  an  allegation  yet  unproven,  if  not  untenable. 

It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  such  cases  ever  actually 
occurred,  and  the  files  of  the  War  Department  do  not  clear 
up  this  doubt.  On  the  face  of  the  statute  the  text  would  seem 
to  apply  only  to  the  soldiers  of  Lee's  army;  but  the  language 
is  pretty  broad  and  in  operation  it  has  been  construed  to  extend 
to  the  soldiers  of  all  he  Confederate  armies.  That  orders 
from  competent  military  authority  to  commit  acts  "in  violation 
of  the  terms  of  -urrender"  were  ever  given  is  difficult  to  believe 
without  clear  evid  nceofsu  ha  fact,  and  this  is  not  forthcoming. 
But  even  if  such  orders  had  been  given,  the  proof  of  them 
would  not  be  difficult  to  unearth.  The  War  Department  files 
are  full  of  affidavits  claiming  that  such  violations  did  occur 
and  that  seizures  were  made  "presumably"  under  orders. 
Payment  of  such  claims  has  been  and  is  being  continually 
made,  and  at  successive  sessions  of  Congress  there  have  been 
appropriations  of  this  kind,  to  cover  such  claims.  The  follow- 
ing appropriations  have  been  made:  March  1, 1903,  an  additional 
$50,000;  April  27,  1904,  an  additional  $125,000;  March  3, 
1905,  an  additional  $100,000;*  and  in  the  Deficiency  Bill 
(Public  Act  No.  54), f  approved  March  4,  1907,  $40,000— 
a  total  of  $365,000  appropriated  by  Appropriation  and  De- 
ficiency Bills  and  paid  out  by  the  United  States  Treasurer. 

Judging  by  the  average  of  allowances  upon  these  claims  there 
is  represented  by  this  amount  of  $365,000,  about  three  thousand 
individual  instances  of  maraudings  alleged  to  have  been  com- 
mitted under  orders  of  a  competent  officer  of  the  United  States! 
No  one  having  knowledge  of  the  splendid  morale  and  character 

*  32  U.  S,  S.  at  L.,  pp.  43,  1048.     t  33  U.  S.  S.  at  L.,  pp.  401,  1225, 


206  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

of  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States  then  in  service  can  believe 
this  to  be  a  fact. 

A  perusal  of  the  affidavits  on  file  in  the  War  Department 
in  behalf  of  the  claimants  and  alleging  such  presumptive  in- 
stances will  fail  to  convince  the  impartial  reader  that  the 
marauding  acts  they  describe  were  committed  "under  orders" 
of  any  identified  United  States  officer. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  special  statute  initiating  these 
appropriations  was  signed  on  February  27,  1902,  less  than  six 
months  after  the  present  incumbent  was  installed  as  Chief 
Executive.  It  is  current  knowledge  that  this  enactment  was 
passed  at  the  instance  of  the  late  Senator  Bates  of  Tennessee, 
upon  a  claim  that  a  body  of  Tennessee  Confederate  soliders, 
returning  home,  had  been  deprived  of  their  horses  and  equip- 
ments. If  they  were,  it  was  competent  for  the  Commander  of  the 
particular  district  to  have  decided  whether,  in  order  to  preserve 
peace  and  order,  it  was  not  necessary  that  an  armed  body 
should  be  excluded  as  an  organization  from  appearing  in  a 
peaceful  community  with  horses  and  equipments.  It  can 
readily  be  understood  that  these  Confederate  soldiers,  fresh 
from  the  field  of  battle,  could  not,  with  any  regard  for  local 
order,  be  permitted,  as  an  associated  body,  while  they  themselves 
were  paroled  prisoners  of  war,  to  return  to  their  home  towns 
where  their  foes  and  neighbors  were  then  or  recently  had  been 
serving  or  enrolled  in  the  military  forces  of  the  United  States. 
Although  at  that  time  hostilities  between  the  great  armies 
had  ceased,  the  appearance  of  such  a  body  in  the  unrest  of 
that  border  region  might  have  created  disturbances.  Every 
Confederate  soldier  was  paroled  under  orders  that  he  should 
obey  the  laws  of  his  home  district  which  was  then  under 
martial  law.  If  any  such  incident  as  the  wholesale  dismount- 
ing and  disarming  claimed  to  have  taken  place  in  Tennessee 
actually  did  occur,  there  must  have  been  adequate  reasons 
for  it  on  the  part  of  the  Commanding  General 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  207 

The  Special  Bill  of  1902  was  promptly  and  quietly  passed 
and  signed  during  the  closing  hours  of  the  session,  without 
the  knowledge  of,  or  investigation  before,  the  American  people, 
and  with  little  or  no  consideration  of  the  alleged  departure 
from  the  right  by  the  United  States  Army,  which  is  exhibited 
in  the  explicit  language  of  the  statute  itself.  This  statute,  and 
how  the  payments  under  it  have  been  made,  constitute  another 
curiosity  of  the  aftermath  of  the  war,  and  testify  to  an  ignom- 
inious and  unjustifiable  magnanimity  of  victor  to  vanquished 
that  is  without  parallel  in  the  military  history  of  the  world. 

(Note  referred  to  on  p.  204.)  Southern  States,  for  a  score  of  years  or 
more,  have  been  the  object  of  special  Congressional  favors.  In  the  last 
session  of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  there  was  appropriated  for  public 
buildings  in  the  States  of  Alabama,  $129,000;  Arkansas,  $85,000;  Florida, 
$40,000;  Georgia,  $332,500;  Louisiana,  $230,000;  Mississippi,  $130,000; 
North  Carolina,  $130,500;  South  Carolina,  $120,000;  Tennessee,  $105,000; 
Texas,  $377,000;  Virginia,  $199,000;  or  $1,878,000  for  these  eleven  States. 

For  river  and  harbor  improvements,  in  addition  to  the  preliminary  work 
also  authorized,  there  was  also  appropriated  relating  to  the  same  States, 
viz.:  Alabama,  $1,047,000;  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  $14,000;  Arkansas, 
$170,500;  Florida,  $1,428,331 ;  Florida  and  Alabama,  $25,000;  Georgia, 
$709,650;  Georgia  and  Florida,  $30,000;  Georgia  and  Alabama,  $200,000; 
Louisiana,  $1,465,792;  Louisiana,  Arkansas  and  Texas,  $250,000 ;  Louisiana 
and  Arkansas,  $217,780;  Mississippi,  $744,500;  North  Carolina,  $455,563; 
South  Carolina,  $302,290;  South  Carolina  and  North  Carolina,  $20,000; 
Tennessee,  $317,595; Tennessee  and  Alabama,  $205,000;  Texas,  $1,853,829; 
Texas  and  Louisiana,  $170,000;  Texas  and  Arkansas,  $36,000;  and  Virginia 
$752,062;  or  $10,014,892  for  these  eleven  States. 

There  has  been  $7,574,983  appropriated  (most  of  it  during  the  last  seven- 
teen years)  for  improvement  of  one  Southern  river  (the  Savannah),  and 
special  credit  has  been  given  to  the  Representative  who  was  instrumental  in 
securing  these  liberal  favors  for  his  constituents.  (See  Cong.  Rec.,  p.  3805.) 

A  Southern  ex-Governor  recently  announced  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  Congress,  with  the  avowed  single  purpose  of  securing  the  refund  of  the 
old  cotton  tax. 

Pecuniary  favors  from  "Uncle  Sam  "  are  readily  projected  and  used  as 
"issues"  in  personal  campaigns  for  Congressional  honors,  and  not  infre- 
quently made  the  basis  of  candidacy. 


XVII 

"It  often  falls  in  course  of  common  life 

That  right  long  time  is  overborne  of  wrong 
Through  avarice  or  power,  or  guile  or  strife, 

That  weakens  her,  and  makes  her  party  strong: 
But  justice,  though  her  doom  she  do  prolong 
Yet  at  the  last  she  will  her  own  cause  right." 

— Spenser's  Faerie  Queene. 

"Thou  too,  sail  on,  O  ship  of  State! 
Sail  on  O  Union  strong  and  great! 
Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  the  hopes  of  future  years, 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate! 

) 

In  spite  of  rock  and  tempests  war, 

In  spite  of  false  lights  on  the  shore, 
Sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea, 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes  are  all  with  thee! 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears, 
Our  faith  triumphant  o'er  our  fears, 
Are  all  with  thee — are  all  with  thee!" 

— Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

Public  attention  has  recently  been  called  to  the  sectional 
spirit  that  is  prevalent  to-day.  The  Brownsville  affray  and  its 
aftermath  brought  into  prominent  relief  the  race  prejudice, 
caste,  discrimination  and  policy  of  those  in  high  places,  North 
as  well  as  South.  Colorphobia  is  not  limited  by  latitude.  It 
is  easily  and  often  most  unexpectedly  displayed. 

The  Senate  inquiry  on  the  Brownsville  affray  will  resume 
in  the  autumn  of  1907,  but  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  209 

call  attention  to  an  expression  of  public  feeling  in  New  York 
City,  and  to  refer  to  some  of  the  initial  testimony  received 
from  the  President  by  the  Senate. 

On  the  evening  of  January  3, 1907,  a  mass-meeting  was  held 
at  Cooper  Institute,  convened  in  celebration  of  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  At  this  meeting  there  was  presented,* 
and  unanimously  adopted,  a  memorial  to  Congress,  which  was 
subsequently  presented  in  the  Senate  by  Senator  Depew  on 
January  7,  1907  (Congressional  Record,  page  690),  and  in  the 
House  by  Mr.  Bennet,  of  New  York,  who  on  January  15,  1907, 
caused  the  memorial  to  be  printed  in  the  Congressional  Record 
at  page  1176,  as  follows: 

To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  Congress  assembled: 

Your  memorialists  respectfully  represent  that: 

This  mass-meeting  of  citizens  convened  at  Cooper  Union,  New  York 
City,  January  3, 1907,  in  the  annual  celebration  of  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, believes  with  the  author  of  that  proclamation  that  mastership 
and  servitude  should  be  supplanted  by  true  manhood,  regardless  of  race 
or  color. 

We  therefore  call  upon  Congress  and  upon  all  Americans  to  accord  to 
the  colored  people  of  this  country  not  only  the  rights,  but  the  respect 
due  to  worthy  American  citizens,  to  the  end  that  United  States  soldiers 
shall  neither  be  insulted  nor  discriminated  against  because  of  their  color; 
and  that,  because  of  color,  the  right  to  vote  shall  not  in  practice  be  any- 
where denied. 

We  appeal  to  the  American  people  for  justice  and  fair  play  and  for  pro- 
tection from  the  ignorant  and  malicious  writers  and  speakers  who  stimulate 
race  hatred  or  seek  to  force  the  colored  people  into  a  peasantry  of  dis- 
franchised servitors. 

We  further  respectfully  memorialize  the  Congress  to  cause  an  impartial 
tribunal  to  hear  and  determine  the  assertions  in  the  President's  Message 
based  upon  ex  parte  proceedings,  made  against  soldiers  of  the  Twenty- 
fifth  Infantry,  who  thereupon  have  been  subjected  to  a  life-long  penalty. 

And  your  memorialists  will  ever  pray. 

Attested  by  the  officers  of  the  meeting. 

Charles  S.  Morris,  Chairman,  A.  G.  Miller,  Secretary. 

*  By  H.  E.  Tremain. 


210  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

At  this  meeting  one  of  the  speakers  *  followed  the  adoption 
of  this  memorial  by  a  few  remarks.  He  said,  in  part: 

"A  most  remarkable  message  concerning  the  unfortunate 
affair  at  Brownsville,  Texas,  has  been  transmitted  to  Congress 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States,  defending  and  em- 
phasizing the  justice  and  wisdom  of  his  discharge  without  honor 
of  a  battalion  of  three  companies  of  the  Twenty-fifth  United 
States  Infantry;  and  imposing  upon  the  men  so  discharged 
certain  penalties  or  disqualifications,  without  the  formality  of 
charges,  of  trials,  or  of  any  judicial  procedure,  military  or  civil. 

"This  message  says: 

"'THE  EVIDENCE  PROVES  conclusively  THAT  A  NUMBER  OF 

SOLDIERS  ENGAGED  IN  A  DELIBERATE  AND  CONCERTED  ATTACK'; 
AND  THAT  THE  ESSENTIAL  FACTS  ARE  'ESTABLISHED  BEYOND 
CHANCE  OF  SUCCESSFUL  CONTRADICTION.'" 

Turning  to  the  audience,  the  speaker  said:  "  Do  you  believe 
that?"  (Cries  of  "No,  No!") 

"If  you  do  believe  it,  it  must  be  because  it  has  been  so  ad- 
judged by  some  court  or  jury;  for  otherwise  such  a  charge 
would  not  be  lightly  accepted.  It  has  not  been  so  adjudged. 
You  will  seek  in  vain  for  any  verdict  or  even  for  any  proceedings 
before  any  tribunal,  civil  or  military.  In  the  absence  of  any 
such  judgment  what  man  has  the  right  to  adjudge,  much  less 
to  condemn?  One  would  naturally  suppose  that  such  language 
would  not  be  used  by  any  dignitary,  much  less  by  the  President 
of  the  United  States — especially  in  a  formal  message  to  Con- 
gress— unless  it  were  based  upon  the  proceedings  of  some 
tribunal,  civil  or  military.  But  the  message  says, '  the  evidence 
proves.'  Now,  why  talk  of  'evidence'  when  no  court  entitled 
to  weigh  '  evidence '  has  ever  been  convened? 

"What  else  says  this  message?  'The  soldiers  were  the 
aggressors  from  start  to  finish.'  Is  THAT  TRUE?"  (Cries  of 
"No,  No!")  "It  has  not  been  so  adjudged  by  any  tribunal. 

*  H.  E.  Tremain. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  211 

'They'  (the  soldiers)  'stand  as  MURDERERS,  who  did  murder 
one  man,  who  tried  to  murder  others  and  who  tried  to  murder 
women  and  children.'  Is  THAT  TRUE?"  (Cries  of  "No,  No!") 
"It  has  not  been  so  adjudged  by  any  tribunal. 

"'They'  (the  soldiers)  'shot  into  a  saloon,  killing  the  bar- 
tender.' Is  THAT  TRUE?  It  has  not  been  so  adjudged  by  any 
tribunal. 

"  '  THE  CRIME  THEY  COMMITTED  OR  CONNIVED  AT  WAS  MURDER. 

.  .  .  THERE  is  NO  QUESTION  OF  THE  MURDER  AND  THE 

ATTEMPTED  MURDERS;  THERE  IS  NO  QUESTION  THAT  SOME  OF 
THE  SOLDIERS  WERE  GUILTY  THEREOF.' 

"  Is  that  true?  Is  it  true  that  there  is  no  question  about  it?" 
(Cries  of  "No,  No!")  "Don't  you  question  it?"  (Cries  of 
"Yes,  Yes!") 

"Again,  in  this  message  the  innocent  soliders  are  described 
as  'comrades  of  the  murderers';  and,  being  innocent,  they  are 
summarily  disgraced  by  a  life-long  penalty.  Is  not  that  a 
fact? 

"We  may  remain  indifferent,  if  we  choose,  touching  the 
legality  or  illegality  of  this  ex  parte  Presidential  judgment, 
but  we  cannot  be  blind  or  indifferent  to  its  justice. 

"The  rigor  of  military  life  must  sometimes  of  necessity 
produce  hardships,  but  never  is  it  the  legitimate  product  of 
injustice. 

"Again,  this  message  declares:  'As  punishment  it'  (this 
penalty)  '  is  utterly  inadequate.  Punishment  meet  for 
mutineers  and  murderers  such  as  these  guilty  of  the  Browns- 
ville assault  is  death;  and  a  punishment  only  less  severe 
ought  to  be  meted  out  to  those  who  have  aided  and 
abetted — by  refusing  to  help  in  their  detection.'  This  is  the 
natural  language  of  an  official  inoculated  with  color  preju- 
dice. As  if,  indeed,  conscious  that  the  reader  of  the  message 
must  necessarily  so  conclude,  its  author  'doth  protest  too 
much'  by  a  disavowal;  for  he  says:  'Any  assertion  that  these 


212  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

men  were  dealt  with  harshly  because  they  were  colored  men 
is  truly  without  foundation.'  Is  THAT  TRUE?"  (Cries  of 
"No,  No!")  "Read  the  record.  The  papers  transmitted  with 
the  message  constitute  the  only  record.  Search  it,  as  the 
speaker  has,  from  cover  to  cover,  and  you  will  search  in  vain 
for  any  proofs  justifying  such  language. 

"As  between  the  word  of  a  colored  man  and  the  word  of  a 
white  man,  whose  word  is  taken  at  Brownsville?  As  between 
the  word  of  a  colored  man  and  a  Texan  'tough,'  whose  word 
is  taken  at  Washington?  As  between  the  oaths  of  167  colored 
soldiers,  in  conflict  with  the  word  of  white  Texans,  who  can 
see  in  the  dark  and  whose  vision  is  unobstructed  by  trees  and 
houses,  whose  word  is  preferred  in  this  marvellous  message?  * 

*  Since  the  meeting  at  which  this  language  was  used,  officers  of  the  dismissed  battalion 
have  discredited  such  "testimony,"  and  have  answered  before  the  Senate  Military  Com- 
mittee directly  in  point,  as  appears  in  the  printed  proceedings  of  that  committee,  e.g., 
see  as  follows: 

Second  Lieut.  Robert  Pattison  Harbold,  U.  S.  Army,  testified  (p.  1989)  in  answer  to 
question  by  Senator  Overman. 

Q.  If  as  many  as  ten  men  of  good  character  and  respectability  should  come  to  you 
and  tell  you  that  they  had  recognized  colored  soldiers  that  night  in  the  streets  of  Browns- 
ville, with  their  guns,  under  the  conditions  which  have  been  related  .  .  .  owing 
to  the  experiments  you  made  .  .  .  and  tell  you  that  they  had  recognized  these 
men  that  night  and  that  they  knew  they  were  colored  men,  would  you  still  believe 
that  they  were  mistaken,  judging  by  your  experience?  Senator  Scott.  On  a  dark 
night? 

The  witness  answered,  "Yes,  sir.     .     .     ." 

Second  Lieut.  James  Blyth,  U.  S.  Army,  testified:  The  witness  had  made  several 
experiments  with  a  number  of  men  and  officers  in  the  night  and  having  described  the 
experiments,  he  was  asked  on  cross-examination:  Q.  If  you  had  been  told  of  your  in- 
ability to  recognize  these  parties  at  the  distance  they  were,  on  that  character  of 
night,  before  your  experiments  you  would  not  have  believed  it?  A.  No,  sir.  .  .  ." 
(p.  2002).  Q.  Do  you  want  the  committee  to  understand  that  in  the  Cowan  alley,  on 
a  bright  starlight  night,  coming  within  two  or  three  feet  of  a  man  that  you  knew,  you 
could  not  tell  whether  he  was  a  negro  or  a  white  man?  A.  Yet,  sir.  .  .  .  Q.  You 
are  satisfied,  then,  from  what  you  have  seen  and  know,  that  if  ten  respectable  people 
should  come  before  this  committee  and  swear  that  they  recognized  these  men  that 
night,  still  you  would  not  believe  they  were  telling  the  truth  about  it,  would  you? 
A.  I  know  now  that  they  could  not  (2007  Senate  Record).  .  .  .  Q.  Now,  if  any  one 
were  to  say  that  looking  out  of  a  window  of  a  dark  night  he  or  she  saw  a  gun  fired,  and 
recognized  by  the  flash  of  that  gun,  it  being  a  high-power  rifle  such  as  you  have  in  use, 
the  face  of  a  man  as  that  of  a  negro,  and  was  able  to  detect  that  he  had  freckles  on  his 
face,  what  would  you  think  of  that  kind  of  a  statement,  from  your  observation  and 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  213 

"  Senate  Document  155  (President's  Message  and  documents) 
is  full  of  proofs  of  race  prejudice.  The  military  inspector, 
upon  whose  prejudiced  report  the  Presidential  Message  is 
largely  founded,  admits  his  own  prejudice. 

"  In  one  aspect  of  the  case,  this  entire  Brownsville  affair, 
historically  and  philosophically  considered,  is  in  a  way  a 
most  fortunate  incident.  It  has  helped  to  rivet  the  serious 
attention  of  the  country  to  the  subtle  and  violent  development 
of  a  race  prejudice  that  unfortunately  is  not  purely  local.  It 
may  have  a  local  origin,  but  it  is  extensive  and  present  in 
many  features  of  the  national  life. 

"Well  might  Lincoln  in  1860  exclaim  at  Cooper  Institute: 
'  What  will  satisfy  the  South? '  If  you  wish  to  know,  consult 
the  Southern  press  and  the  speeches  of  Southern  men  in  public 
life  as  well  as  their  conversational  expressions.  These  voice 
the  demand.  What  is  the  real  demand?  It  is  thus  expressed 
by  the  Atlanta  News,  Dec.  21,  1906: 

"'Cut  the  heart  out  of  the  political  citizenship  of  the  negroes 
by  taking  away  from  them  their  privileges  of  voting  and  hold- 
ing public  office,  and  the  raging  sea  of  racial  issues  in  this  nation 
will  be  as  quickly  calmed  as  the  waves  of  Galilee  when  Christ 
commanded  them  to  be  still.' 

"Although  expressed  irreverently,  this  is  the  real  demand. 
Southern  men  who  mildly  pretend  to  think  otherwise  are  not 
political  leaders.  They  are  sent  to  the  rear.  They  are  put 
out  of  public  life.  They  have  no  power.  The  oligarchy 

experience?  A.  /  would  not  believe  it.  Q.  You  would  not  believe  it?  A.  No,  sir. 
Q.  And  what  would  you  believe  of  a  statement  of  similar  character,  to  the  effect  that 
by  the  flashes  of  rifles  it  could  be  determined  whether  the  hats  worn  by  the  men  were 
black  hats  or  gray  hats,  or  whether  they  had  cords  around  them  or  not?  A.  With  our 
rifles  the  experiments  showed  that  the  flash  of  a  riflle  was  not  sufficient  to  show  you  anything. 
Q.  You  could  not  tell  what  kind  of  a  rifle  even?  No,  sir;  you  could  not  even  see  the 
rifle  that  fired  the  shots.  Q.  So  that  if  any  one  who  was  looking  out  could  see  such  things 
as  I  have  indicated  it  was  because  they  had  better  powers  of  observation  than  you 
had,  or  else  they  were  mistaken  in  what  they  saw  or  observed?  A.  Yes,  sir;  that 
is  it  (1993,  Senate  Committee  Record). 


214  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

dominates.  '  Down  with  the  negro '  was  the  recurring  phrase, 
repeatedly  applauded  in  the  speech  of  the  chairman  of  the  last 
Georgia  Democratic  Convention.  Other  speakers  were  vocifer- 
ously cheered  when  they  denied  that  the  negro  needed  the 
protection  colored  votes  would  admittedly  secure.  These  are 
men  in  control  of  party  and  of  State.  They  help  constitute 
an  oligarchy.  Their  demand  is  that  the  colored  people  shall 
become  a  peasantry  of  disfranchised  servitors. 

"No  independent  political  party  associated  to  resist  the 
Democratic  organization  is  practicable.  It  is  not  permitted 
to  be  maintained.  The  nation  has  the  remedy  in  its  own 
hands.  Reduce  (by  lawful  Congressional  enactments)  the 
power  wielded  by  this  oligarchy.  Compel  the  recasting  of 
political  lines  and  reorganization  in  all  political  life  within  the 
States  it  subjugates.  Expose  to  the  apathetic  North  the 
deplorable  conditions  under  which  blacks  as  well  as  whites  are 
suffering  in  the  South.  Let  the  North  shake  off  the  hypnotic 
influence  of  Southern  frenzy  and  lead  for  peace,  '  follow  light 
and  do  the  right.' 

"'Nothing  is  worse  than  sectionalism  within  a  nation/  was 
once  remarked  by  Hon.  John  Sherman.  Is  the  whole  United 
States  to  be  sectionalized?  Are  the  prejudices  and  provincial- 
isms that  dominate  the  politics  and  affairs  of  eleven  States  to 
extend  their  domination  over  the  people  of  thirty-five  other 
States?  If  these  localisms  represent  the  most  uplifting  civil 
aspirations,  they  might  prove  as  perennial  showers  more 
refreshing  than  objectionable.  But  created  and  thriving  in 
the  vicious  atmosphere  of  caste  prejudice,  electoral  fraud  and 
'  ring '  rule,  their  restriction  rather  than  extension  is  demanded 
in  the  true  interests  of  the  nation. 

"But  as  the  case  now  stands  no  proposal  objected  to  by  this 
organized  system  of  partisan  imperialism  can  be  entertained 
or  carried  forward  as  a  policy  of  the  Democratic  party.  Shall 
this  austere  and  nocuous  sectionalism  prevail  to  sectionalize 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  215 

the  whole  United  States?    That  is  not  an  academic  inquiry. 
'A  condition  and  not  a  theory  confronts  us.' 

"The  enemies  of  equality  and  the  adherents  of  caste  rule  are 
zealous,  active  and  agitating.  Their  propaganda  is  skilfully 
progressive.  Ministers  and  college  professors  are  enlisted  on 
their  side.  A  new  anti-negro  magazine  has  been  established 
at  Atlanta,  in  aid  of  their  cause.  But,  as  sure  as  there  is  One 
above  Who  intends  that  there  shall  be  good-will  to  men  with 
'peace  on  earth/  the  great  conscience  of  the  American  people 
will  assuredly  be  aroused,  so  that  the  blessings  of  JUSTICE 
may  come  alike  to  black  and  white." 


In  glancing  over  the  forty  years  that  have  intervened  since 
the  great  war,  and  contemplating  the  conditions  to-day  North 
and  South  as  they  have  evolved  from  that  momentous  crisis, 
it  will  appear  that  there  is  more  intense  and  artificial  discrimina- 
tion, more  class-caste-and-privilege  sentiment  among  the 
people  than  existed  in  ante-bellum  days.  Reviewing  the 
successive  steps  from  the  Reconstruction  period  to  the  most 
recent  discussions  and  action  in  Congress,  and  the  latest  speeches 
of  public  men  high  in  authority,  this  fact  is  brought  home 
forcibly  to  those  who  participated  actively  in  the  war  and 
have  engaged  in  public  affairs  since  the  war.  The  same  feeling 
that  Lincoln  intelligently  encountered  in  reference  to  slavery 
is,  under  another  guise  and  with  equal  subtlety,  rampant 
to-day.  The  political  tyranny  of  the  old  slave  oligarchy  is 
duplicated  by  the  Bourbon  oligarchy,  masquerading  under 
the  name  of  Democracy,  that  dominates  the  South  to-day! 
Extreme  fanatical  prejudice  on  account  of  race  shows  itself 
in  violent  diatribes  as  well  as  in  political  disfranchisement 
through  State  enactments  framed  for  the  avowed  purpose  of 
depriving  the  colored  people  of  their  suffrage  rights  under 
the  War  Amendments;  and  is  further  exhibited  by  a  species 
of  mobocracy  easily  aroused  after  the  passions  of  the  violent 


216  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

and  vicious  whites  shall  have  been  excited  to  a  pitch  of  frenzy 
by  careless  or  skilful  appeals  of  demagogues.  This  same 
prejudice  also  manifests  itself  in  divers  ways  by  a  discrimina- 
tion in  education,  by  the  treatment  of  farm  labor  and  of  con- 
vict labor,  and  in  the  successful  efforts  to  keep  the  colored  race 
in  an  inferior  and  subservient  condition — where  publicists  are 
now  openly  maintaining  that  it  must  ever  remain. 

There  pervades  the  acts  and  expressions  of  all  people  of  in- 
fluence in  the  Southern  States,  as  well  as  of  many  at  the  North, 
a  feeling  that  there  is  and  must  be  of  reason  a  condition  of 
perpetual  servility — a  servile  population  which  out  of  necessity 
must  always  and  forever  be  treated  upon  that  basis  and  no 
other,  and  be  and  forever  remain  a  class  peculiarly  distinct  from 
all  other  elements  of  the  country's  population, — and  in  all  respects 
be  treated  accordingly.  What  the  South  calls  "our  system" 
must  be  dealt  with,  too,  not  by  the  nation  at  large,  but  by  the 
interests  and  prejudices  of  locality.  This  was  correspondingly 
the  case  in  1860.  In  advising  against  secession,  the  representa- 
tive who  afterwards  became  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy, 
in  an  open  letter  to  his  constituents  (May,  1860),  counselled 
the  South  saying  that  he  had 

"no  fears  for  the  institution  of  slavery  either  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it, 
if  our  people  are  all  true  to  themselves.  .  .  .  There  is  in  my  judgment 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  'irrepressible  conflict'  of  which  we  hear  so  much. 
Slavery  rests  upon  greath  truths,  which  can  never  be  successfully  assailed 
by  reason  or  argument.  .  .  .  Our  system  rests  upon  an  impregnable 
basis  that  can  and  will  defy  all  assaults  from  without.  My  greatest  ap- 
prehension is  from  causes  within.  .  .  .  We  have  grown  luxurious 
in  the  exuberance  of  our  well-being  and  unparalleled  prosperity.  There 
is  a  tendency  everywhere,  not  only  at  the  North,  but  at  the  South,  to  strife, 
dissension,  disorder  and  anarchy.  It  is  against  this  tendency  that  the 
sober-minded,  reflecting  men  everywhere  should  now  be  called  upon  to 
guard." 

Thus  it  appears  that  it  was  believed  then,  as  it  is  now  sec- 
tionally  avowed,  that  "our  system"  of  discrimination  rests 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  217 

upon  impregnable  truth,  and  only  is  in  danger  from  a  growth 
of  luxury  and  inattention  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  in  im- 
mediate control  of  it. 

In  taking  this  attitude  the  South  is  running  counter  to  the 
teachings  of  history  and  philosophy.  Every  nation  that  has 
differentiated  its  component  units  in  that  way  has  fallen  into 
decay. 

The  reaction  upon  our  white  population  and  the  apathy 
fostered  in  the  general  electorate  bring  weakness  to  the  body 
politic,  already  apparent  in  the  exclusion  of  the  blacks  from, 
and  the  inattention  of  the  whites  of  the  South  to,  the  duties 
of  citizenship. 

Notwithstanding  that  the  franchise  is  theoretically  and 
noisily  appraised  and  lauded  as  the  elevating  factor  of  good 
citizenship,  it  is  in  practice  so  managed,  in  at  least  eleven  States, 
as  not  to  be  utilized  by  other  than  white  people. 

The  South  claimed  the  right  to  settle  for  itself  and  for  the 
country  all  questions  about  slavery.  To-day  it  claims  to  be 
left  alone  to  deal  with  its  so-called  "problems,"  and  to  have 
them  regarded  as  of  purely  local,  not  of  national  concern. 

Instead  of  the  national  party  in  power  taking  in  hand  the 
matter  of  an  equitable  electoral  representation  and  dealing 
with  the  subject  in  such  a  way  that  the  real  voice  of  the  people 
may  be  heard,  that  party — to  its  own  jeopardy,  if  not  for  its 
own  downfall — has  temporized,  and  encouraged  the  Southern 
oligarchy  in  its  unjustifiable  claims  and  action.  A  corrupting 
plutocracy  and  a  pseudo-aristocracy  altogether  out  of  place 
in  a  republic  have  sprung  up.  Successful  attempts  are  daily 
made  to  extol  what  is  vaingloriously  styled  the  "old  civiliza- 
tion," and  to  re-inject  the  aristocratic  spirit  into  communities 
professing  democracy.  Caste  is  encouraged;  the  philosophy 
of  the  war  is  ignored;  history  is  distorted;  false  conclusions  are 
disseminated;  sentimental  imaginings  are  held  up  as  historical 
facts;  and  the  Confederacy,  that  was  itself  a  veritable  tyranny, 


218  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

is  heroized  as  a  beneficent  albeit  unlucky  experiment!  The 
lessons  of  the  war  are  so  stated,  and  in  an  ex  parte  and  partial 
way,  that  the  present  generation  is  in  danger  of  misreading 
and  misunderstanding  the  underlying  principles  and  real  issues 
and  results  of  that  stupendous  conflict  of  civilizations  that  took 
place  from  1861  to  1866. 

All  this  presents  a  situation  that  promotes  a  rule  by  dema- 
gogues who  profit  by  popular  prejudices  and  arouse  the  masses 
towards  some  wrecking  result  that  would  impair  the  stability, 
if  not  destroy  the  structure,  represented  by  the  present  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States. 

Herbert  Spencer,  after  one  of  his  visits  to  America,  wrote  of 
"the  easy-going  readiness  to  permit  trespasses  because  it 
would  be  troublesome  or  unprofitable  to  oppose  them"; — he 
added  the  admonition,  that  this  condition  "leads  to  the  habit 
of  acquiescence  in  wrong  and  the  decay  of  free  institutions." 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  "habit  of  acquiescence"  has  be- 
come so  strong  that  public  men  who  oppose  wrongs  to-day  are 
styled  "troublesome."  * 

These  pages  but  faintly  exhibit  the  noxious  spirit  of  section- 
alism that  has  grown  until  its  proportions  have  become  a 
national  menace  and  call  for  drastic  treatment. 

This  is  emphasized  whether  the  viewpoint  be  towards  the 
electorate,  its  inequalities,  its  inertia  and  apathy;  or  its  re- 
lation to  educational  progress  in  communities  and  States; 
to  enlightened  and  useful  citizenship  therein;  the  protection 
of  property,  great  or  small;  or  the  safety  of  the  earnings  of 
wage  workers,  and  the  protection  of  laborers  of  all  kinds,  and 
their  life  and  health,  against  iniquitous  tyranny;  or  to  the 
promotion  of  industrial  thrift  and  social  order,  and  the  inculca- 
tion of  fundamental  principles  upon  which  the  States  of  the 
Union  and  the  nation  itself  are  founded. 

*  This  epithet  was  recently  applied  in  Ohio  politics  to  a  distinguished  Senator  there, 
engaged  in  discussing  national  topics. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  219 

The  reader  who  has  approached  these  pages — exhibiting,  as 
it  is  believed  they  do,  the  intentions,  designs,  avowals,  purposes 
and  conduct  of  those  in  charge  of  public  affairs — with  an  open 
mind,  not  prejudiced  by  association  or  training,  will  surely 
conclude  that  the  conditions  demand  national  grappling,  so 
that  it  shall  be  settled  once  and  for  all  time,  whether  the  Con- 
stitution, in  letter  or  in  spirit,  may  with  impunity  be  nullified 
by  evasion,  avoidance  or  defiance ;  or  whether  there  is  not 
power  and  authority  in  the  nation  to  punish  and  to  extirpate 
such  abuses. 

Shall  the  court  of  last  resort  be  the  people  of  the  whole 
United  States,  or  shall  it  be  the  people  of  a  section  only? 
This  presents  an  issue  immediate  and  irrepressible  that  cannot 
be  concealed,  evaded,  avoided,  distorted  or  escaped! 

The  preceding  pages  have  had  for  their  purpose  the  throwing 
of  light  on  this  question,  and  of  asking  profound  consideration 
of  issues  shown  to  have  been  already  much  obscured. 

If  the  facts  and  statements  in  this  volume  shall  lead  any 
impartial  reader  towards  an  appreciation  of  the  danger  of 
regarding  this  issue  exclusively  from  an  academic  or  technical 
viewpoint,  instead  of  treating  it  on  fundamental  principles 
and  by  the  practical  measures  the  situation  demands,  the 
compiler's  object  will  have  been  fully  attained. 


A  mighty  nation  can  afford  to  condone  and  to  relent,  never 
to  relapse. 

"The  Flag  of  America  floats  o'er  the  free, 
And  proud  is  our  country,  as  well  it  may  be; 
Ideal  the  Republic!     From  mountain  to  main 
Fraternity,  Justice,  Equality  reign! 

"How  pleasing  this  picture  to  patriot's  view; 
How  galling  the  thought,  'tis  but  partially  true: 
For  Freedom  is  halted,  Fraternity  stayed, 
Equality  mocked  at,  and  Justice  delayed! 


220  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"The  sectional  spirit  is  spread  o'er  the  land, 
And  privilege  and  wealth  hold  Labor  in  hand: 
The  deeds  of  our  Fathers,  ideals  of  the  past, 
Are  menaced  by  Class,  endangered  by  Caste, 

''O,  let  us  Americans  never  forget 
The  blood-purchased  patterns  our  fathers  have  set; 
And  let  not  the  Nation  forget  or  ignore 
The  lessons  and  truths  that  were  taught  through  our  War! 

"  For  shall  we  allow  the  cold  cynic  to  note 
A  man  is  deemed  free  although  filched  of  his  vote? 
Shall  sectional  allies  have  power,  alas! 
With  Party  and  Country  to  govern  by  Class  ?  " 

— D.  H.  F. 

Let  the  Nation  answer! 


APPENDIX   A  (CHAPTER  VII) 
PRESS  EXPRESSIONS  DISAPPROVING  OF  THE  laissez-faire  POLICY.* 

The  Republican  Plank  of  1904. — The  Suffrage  Question  a  Political 
Issue,  Vitally  Concerning  the  Interests  of  all  the  People,  and  it  "must 
be  met  and  settled." 

"It  is  already  certain  that  the  present  Congress  will  pass  no  law  relating 
to  the  conditions  of  suffrage  in  the  Southern  States.  It  is  highly  probable 
that  the  next  will  not  either.  President  Roosevelt  is  against  action  of  the 
kind;  that  is  an  open  secret.  It  is  obvious  that  he  is  about  to  woo  the 
South.  Whether  it  be  intolerable  to  him  that  his  popularity  should 
suffer  for  righteousness'  sake  in  any  part  of  the  country,  or  whether  some 
other  motive  dictate  his  present  policy,  it  is  tolerably  clear  that  he  intends 
to  do  everything  in  his  power  to  win  back  the  lost  and  longed-for  huzzas 
of  the  Southern  people.  'Let  the  South  give  me  two  years/  Mr.  Thomas 
Nelson  Page  reports  him  as  saying,  'and  it  will  see  that  it  has  entirely 
misunderstood  me.'  This  can  only  argue  that  he  now  regards  the  plank 
in  the  Republican  platform  calling  for  the  enforcement  of  the  constitu- 
tional amendments  merely  as  so  much  waste  paper. 

"At  the  same  time,  the  question  is  too  grave  and  pressing  to  be  put 
by  at  any  man's  behest.  Both  locally  and  nationally,  morally  as  well  as 
politically,  the  evils  of  the  existing  situation  are  too  patent  to  be  ignored. 
They  must  be  discussed  fearlessly,  and  a  remedy  sought  with  all  diligence. 
The  debate  is,  in  fact,  going  on  and  will  go  on.  Notable  contributions 
are  made  to  it  from  day  to  day. 

"  This  suffrage  question  very  properly  belongs  to  the  next  Congress.  That 
body  was  chosen  on  the  Chicago  platform,  and  it  was  that  platform  that 
pledged  the  Republican  party  to  remedial  suffrage  action.  The  present 
Congress  at  this  short  session  will  have  its  hands  full  of  other  matters,  and 
could  not  spare  the  time  for  such  discussion  as  the  suffrage  question  is 
certain  to  provoke.  But  the  next  Congress  must  face  the  mudc,  and  we 
shall  see  then  whether  the  promise  of  a  square  deal  for  the  country  at  the 
ballot  box  was  no  more  than  a  campaign  dodge. 

*  See  page  87. 


222  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"  The  Evening  Post  puts  the  President  in  opposition,  and  says  that  his 
attitude  is  an  open  secret.  Is  it  sure  of  that  ?  There  is  no  such  open 
secret  here.  The  President  is  not  authoritatively  quoted  here  on  the  sub- 
ject one  way  or  the  other.  It  is  expected  here  that  he  will  meet  that 
question,  as  he  will  the  tariff  question,  when  he  reaches  it,  or  when  it 
reaches  him.  Should  the  President  remain  silent  about  it  in  his  first 
message  to  the  next  Congress  the  friends  of  suffrage  reform  might  feel  a 
trifle  discouraged,  but  they  would  by  no  means  despair.  They  are  bent 
on  obtaining  an  answer  of  some  kind  from  the  representatives  of  the 
people  on  what  so  vitally  concerns  the  interests  of  all  the  people. 

"The  President's  remark  to  Thomas  Nelson  Page  may  not  admit  of  the 
Evening  Post's  interpretation.  The  South's  fury  was  created  and  fostered 
by  the  politicians  for  campaign  purposes,  and  was  founded  on  the  silly 
charge  that  the  President  desired  and  was  trying  to  establish  social  equality 
between  whites  and  blacks.  Already  the  South  is  beginning  to  see  through 
that,  and  in  two  years  she  should  have  shaken  off  the  whole  nonsense  of 
the  proposition.  But  why  should  the  President  purchase  the  admiring 
regard  of  any  section  by  consenting  to  the  nullification  of  any  portion 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ? 

"  The  Evening  Post  puts  too  high  an  appraisement  on  the  suffrage  question 
when  it  declares  that  it  cannot  be  side-tracked,  but  must  be  met  and  settled. 
The  debate  will  go  on  until  that  end  in  some  form  is  attained."  * 

*  Washington  Evening  Star,  Jan.  7, 1905. 


APPENDIX    B   (CHAPTER  VII) 

PLANKS  RELATING  TO  SOUTHERN  CONDITIONS  ADOPTED  BY  REPUBLICAN 
AND  DEMOCRATIC  STATE  CONVENTIONS. 


Public  Sentiment  Favored  the  National  Republican  Platform  of  1904. — 
A  "live"  issue. 

CONSTITUTIONAL    SUFFRAGE    PLANKS 
ADOPTED  BY  RBPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTIONS 

OHIO,  Ohio  was  the  first  State  with  soil  forever  free  from  the  stain  of 

June,  1903.  slavery.  Pledged  by  the  great  creative  ordinance  of  1787  "to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,"  and  bound 
thereby  to  "forever  remain  a  part  of  the  United  States  of  America." 
Ohio  was  the  foremost  in  the  war  to  preserve  "the  indestructible 
union  of  indestructible  States,"  and  adheres  firmly  to  every  amend- 
ment which  that  war  wrote  into  our  country's  Constitution  as  bind- 
ing in  honor  upon  every  American  citizen.  Therefore,  we  hold 
fast  to  the  doctrine  of  equity  everywhere  in  the  exercise  of  elective 
franchise,  maintaining  that  justice  requires  any  State  excluding 
any  of  its  citizens  from  the  ballot  to  be  proportionately  reduced 
in  its  representation  in  the  electoral  college  and  lower  house  of  the 
national  Congress. 

IOWA,  "We  are  earnestly  opposed  to  all  legislation  designed  to  accom- 

July,  1903.  plish  the  disfranchisement  of  citizens  upon  lines  of  race,  color,  or 
station  in  life,  and  condemn  the  measures  adopted  by  the  Demo- 
cratic party  in  certain  States  of  the  Union  to  accomplish  that 
end." 

MARYLAND,  "We  favor  impartial  protection  to  all  citizens  in  the  exercise  of 

1903.  their  just  rights  and  we  denounce  all  attempts  to  inflame  sectional 

or  race  prejudice  as  a  cloak  for  dishonest  government  and  further 
outrages  upon  the  elective  franchise." 

VIRGINIA,  "We  condemn  the  Democratic  party  of   Virginia  for  making  a 

Mar.  3,  1904.  constitution  and  forcing  it  upon  the  people  of  Virginia  without 
their  consent,  in  violation  of  the  promises  and  pledges  of  said  party. 
And  we  further  condemn  the  Democratic  party  in  refusing  to  give 
to  the  people  of  Virginia  an  honest  election  law,  as  they  promised 
to  do." 

MISSOURI,  "As  citizens  of  Missouri,  we  indignantly  stamp  unfair  election 

Mar.  22,  1904.     laws,  false  counting  of  votes,  brutality  of  thugs  and  bruisers  and 


224 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 


police  domination  at  the  polls  as  demanding  the  strongest  con- 
demnation of  all  citizens  of  whatever  political  opinion,  and  we 
demand  in  the  name  of  representative  government  that  it  shall 
cease,  and  we  call  on  all  patriotic  lovers  of  their  country  to  join 
the  Republicans  of  this  State  in  putting  it  down  forever,  establish- 
ing in  the  large  cities  of  our  State  local  self-government.  This 
is  not  merely  a  question  of  party,  but  of  perpetuity  of  the  republic, 
in  which  all  citizens  are  equally  interested." 

GEORGIA,  "Whereas  many  States  have   amended    their  constitutions  for 

March  23,  1904.  the  purpose  of  disfranchising  voters,  on  account  of  race,  color  and 
previous  conditions  of  servitude,  in  violation  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and,  WHEREAS, 
by  the  terms  of  that  Amendment,  Congress  is  instructed  and 
authoiized  to  enforce  it,  by  'appropriate  legislation,'  Now  there- 
fore, We,  the  Republicans  of  Georgia,  in  State  Convention  assembled, 
DEMAND  that  a  Republican  Congress  enter  at  once  upon  the  per- 
formance of  its  duty,  to  the  end  that  the  colored  man's  rights  of 
franchise,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  be  main- 
tained and  enforced. 

"  WE  FURTHER  DEMAND  that  the  electoral  vote  of  States  whose 
amended  constitutions  nullify  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  be  not 
recognized  or  counted  in  the  election  for  the  President  and  Vice- 
President." 

TENNESSEE,  "As  citizens  of  the  State  of  Tennessee,  we  indignantly  stamp 

April  7,  1904.  unfair  election  laws,  false  counting  of  votes,  suppressing  of  the 
popular  will  at  the  polls  as  demanding  the  strongest  condemnation 
of  all  citizens  of  whatever  political  faith,  and  we  demand  in  the 
name  of  representative  government,  that  fraud  and  corruption 
shall  cease;  and  we  call  upon  all  patriotic  lovers  of  their  country 
to  join  the  Republicans  of  this  State  in  demanding  a  modification 
of  the  present  election  laws,  so  that  each  party,  either  in  a  regular 
or  primary  election,  may  have  a  fair  and  equal  representation  of 
its  own  choosing  in  holding  elections;  and  we  further  demand  a 
modification  of  the  election  laws  so  that  all  violations  of  the  laws 
may  be  made  felonies." 

NEW  YORK,  "The  permanency  of  the  Republican  Government  is  based  upon 

April  12,  1904.  a  pure  and  free  ballot.  We  are  opposed  to  either  its  corruption 
by  money  or  its  limitation  by  depriving  any  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  anywhere,  of  the  right  to  deposit  his  vote,  except  for  causes 
permitted  by  the  Constitution.  To  this  end,  we  demand  the  pro- 
tection and  permanency  of  all  civil  and  political  rights  of  our  citizens 
without  discrimination  as  to  race  or  color." 

MASSACHUSETTS,       "No  popular  government  is  safe  that  does  not  rest  upon  a  free 
April  15,  1904.     and  fair  ballot.     We  believe  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  safeguard  the  rights  and  immunities  of  all  our  citizens, 
so  that  no  discrimination  shall  be  made  against  anyone  on  account 
of  his  race,  creed  or  color." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  225 

ARKANSAS,  "We  emphatically  denounce  any  and  all  discriminations  at  the 

April  17,  1904.  polls  founded  upon  race  or  color,  and  deplore  all  attempts  for 
political  purposes  to  excite  and  foment  prejudice  against  the 
colored  race;  and  pointing  to  the  fact  that  in  Congressional  Elections 
the  average  vote  for  Congressmen  in  the  eleven  Southern  States 
in  only  one-fourth  of  that  in  the  other  thirty-four  States  of  the 
Union,  we  call  upon  the  Congress  to  exercise  its  undoubted  con- 
stitutional power  to  reduce  the  representation  in  Congress  and  in 
the  electoral  college  proportionately." 

VERMONT,  "The  Republicans  of  Vermont  stand  for  the  preservation   in- 

April  20,  1904.  violate  of  the  equal  rights  of  suffrage  guaranteed  by  our  national 
Constitution,  and  of  the  purity  of  the  ballot." 

OKLAHOMA,  "We  reaffirm  the  declaration  of    the  Republican  party  for  the 

April  20,  1904.  right  of  every  citizen  to  cast  one  free  and  untrammeled  vote,  and 
to  have  that  vote  honestly  counted." 

LOUISIANA,  Louisiana  Republican  State  Convention,  New  Orleans,  May 

May  3,  1904.  3.  1904. 

Mr.  Suthon,  of  Orleans,  then  reported  the  resolutions  of  the  Com- 
mittee as  follows: 

The  Republican  Party  of  Louisiana,  assembled  to  convention 
for  the  purpose  of  nominating  delegates  at  large  to  the  National 
Convention  and  Presidential  electors,  adopts  the  following  resolu- 
tions: 

Resolved,  That  the  Republican  Party  in  all  its  aims,  policies  and 
traditions  has  proven  itself  the  only  reliable  instrument  for  the 
preservation  of  good  government,  stable  institutions,  fair  elections, 
honest  laws,  national  unity  and  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty  and 
property  according  to  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  land. 

Resolved,  That  the  Democratic  party,  as  we  know  it  in  this  State, 
is  the  open  and  avowed  enemy  of  popular  government.  It  has 
seized  upon  the  State,  and  distorted  the  government  into  an  engine 
of  tyranny  and  oppression  to  rob  the  citizens  of  the  right  to  partici- 
pate in  the  government.  The  Democratic  Party  of  Louisiana  scoffs 
at  the  Federal  Constitution,  openly  declaring  its  determination 
not  to  submit,  nor  to  live  under  the  same.  To  continue  the  mockery, 
it  adopts  a  State  Constitution,  through  a  so-called  Constitutional 
Convention,  composed  exclusively  of  Democrats,  and  without  sub- 
mitting the  same  to  the  people  for  ratification,  imposes  it  and  a 
perpetual  Democratic  oligarchy  upon  the  State  of  Louisiana.  The 
express  purpose  of  this  Constitution  was  to  disfranchise  as  many 
Republicans  and  as  few  Democrats  as  possible.  In  their  boldness, 
the  Democratic  leaders  invented  the  "Grandfather"  Clause,  an  open 
violation  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  to  carry  out  their  conspiracy 
against  popular  government.  They  refuse  to  live  even  by  their  own 
Constitution,  and  by  the  aid  of  trick  election  laws,  and  partisan  and 
dishonest  election  officials,  their  own  Constitution  is  as  putty  in 
their  hands,  to  be  respected  only  when  it  is  useful  to  the  Democratic 
party.  Thousands  of  Republicans  throughout  the  State  of  Louisi- 


226 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 


ana,  who  are  entitled  to  vote  under  the  State  Constitution,  are 
disfranchised  by  the  tricks  of  the  registration  official",  and  by 
the  vexatious  obstacles  to  registration  and  voting  imposed  by  the 
Democratic  officials,  while  the  way  to  vote  is  made  easy  to  any  one 
who  will  vote  the  Democratic  ticket.  All  of  this  is  done  under  the 
false  cry  of  white  supremacy. 

Resolved,  That  under  such  conditions  the  people  have  lost  heart 
and  show  no  interest  in  elections.  The  suffrage  and  election  con- 
ditions in  Louisiana  are  chaotic,  and  they  will  continue  so  long  as 
Congressmen,  United  States  Senators  and  Presidential  electors 
can  be  delivered  to  the  National  Democratic  Party  by  such  revolu- 
tionary methods. 

Resolved,  That  the  crusade  of  hate  and  bitterness  against  every- 
thing Republican,  preached  by  Democratic  orators  and  some  of 
the  Democratic  Press,  finds  no  response  in  the  hearts  of  the  Southern 
people,  the  most  conservative  of  whom  are  hopeful  for  a  change. 


NEW  JERSEY,          "We  are  earnestly  opposed  to  all  legislation  designed  to  accom- 
May  11,  1904.      plish  the  disfranchisement  of  citizens  upon  lines  of  race,  color  or 
station  of  life,  and  condemn  the  measures  adopted  by  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  certain  States  of  the  Union  to  accomplish  that  end." 

MARYLAND,  "By  the  first  Republican  triumph  in  Maryland  under  Lincoln, 

May  11,  1904.      our  State  was  the  first  to  free  the  slave  by  law.     The  last  Democratic 

triumph  in  Maryland  was  followed  by  a  semi-barbarous  'Jimcrow' 

car  law,  already  rebuked  by  Christian  sentiment  of  citizens  of  all 

religious  faiths. 

"We  denounce  the  illegal  and  criminal  election  laws  of  the  last 
legislature,  which  continue  and  intensify  the  trick  ballot  frauds 
of  the  extra  session  legislation.  Maryland  Democracy  is  an  organi- 
zation-conspiracy for  disfranchisement  of  whites,  as  well  as  blacks. 
We  protest  that  our  white  State  cannot  be  permanently  classed  with 
the  black  belt  without  injury  to  our  commerce,  to  our  trade  and 
our  State  prestige  and  credit.  Every  section  and  amendment  of 
our  country's  Constitution  is  binding  in  honor  upon  every  American 
citizen.  We  denounce  the  Democratic  State  legislation  designed 
to  disfranchise  citizens  on  account  of  race  or  color.  In  our  white 
State  all  attempts  to  inflame  race  prejudice  are  a  cloak  for  dis- 
honest government  and  further  outrages  upon  the  elective  franchise. 
The  plan  to  cheat  the  blacks  in  a  white  State  will  ultimately  cheat 
the  whites.  The  permanence  of  Republican  government  rests  upon 
a  pure  and  free  ballot.  We  oppose  its  corruption  by  money  or  its 
.  restriction  by  depriving  any  citizen  of  his  right  to  vote,  except  for 

causes  permitted  by  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  is  the  duty  of 
the  Federal  and  State  government  to  safeguard  all  the  rights  and 
immunities  of  all  our  citizens.  Nullification  of  our  Federal  Con- 
stitution by  State  evasions  are  immoral  and  unpatriotic,  and  will 
be  resisted  by  the  Republican  party,  inspired  by  Christian  senti- 
ment, until  finally  overcome." 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 


227 


NEW  HAMPSHIRE,  "  We  denounce  as  revolutionary  and  unconstitutional  the  method 
May  17  1904.  adopted  in  certain  States  to  abridge  the  right  of  suffrage,  which  is 
guaranteed  by  the  amended  Constitution  to  all  qualified  citizens 
irrespective  of  race  or  color,  and  in  States  where  such  unlawful 
discrimination  is  practised  we  favor  the  enforcement  by  appropriate 
legislation  of  the  provisions  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  with  a 
view  to  reducing  their  representation  in  the  electoral  college  and 
the  House  of  Representatives." 

NEBRASKA,  "In  the  language  of  President  Roosevelt,  we  believe  that  the 

May  18,  1904.  door  of  hope  and  opportunity  should  be  open  to  every  worthy  and 
deserving  American  citizen  without  distinction  of  race,  color  or 
religion." 

CALIFORNIA,  "The   Republicans   of   the   State   of    California,   in    convention 

May  18,  1904.  assembled,  declare  their  allegiance  to  the  principles  and  policies 
of  the  National  Republican  Party, and  'declare  in  favor  of  the  com- 
plete protection  of  every  American  citizen  in  his  constitutional 
rights  everywhere.'" 

DELAWARE,  "We  oppose   the  disfranchisement   of  the  negro  on   the  plain 

Mar.  16,  1904.  grounds  of  morality  and  of  public  policy,  as  tending  to  increase 
and  foster  the  very  evils  complained  of,  and  to  still  further  degrade 
and  hold  in  subjection  in  the  midst  of  our  body  politic  a  race  that 
needs  every  assistance.  Moreover,  wherever  the  race  is  disfran- 
chised, we  demand  that  this  grave  question  be  resolutely  and 
bravely  confronted,  and  the  representation  in  the  lower  House  of 
Congress  shall  be  exactly  abridged  in  any  State  in  proportion  to 
its  disfranchised  population ,  as  a  matter  of  justice  to  those  States 
that  preserve  and  maintain  a  free  ballot  and  free  suffrage." 

COLORADO,  "The  permanency  of   Republican   government  is  based  upon  a 

May  6,  1904.  pure  and  free  ballot.  We  are  opposed  to  either  its  corruption  or 
its  limitation  by  depriving  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  any- 
where of  the  right  to  deposit  his  vote,  except  for  causes  designated 
by  the  Constitution.  To  this  end  we  demand  the  protection  and 
permanency  of  all  civil  and  political  rights  of  our  citizens,  without 
discrimination  as  to  race  or  color." 


ALABAMA,  "The  permanency   of    Republican    government  is   based  on  a 

May  10,  1904.  pure  and  free  ballot.  We  are  opposed  to  either  its  corruption  or 
its  limitation  by  depriving  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  any- 
where of  the  right  to  deposit  his  vote,  except  for  causes  permitted 
by  the  Constitution. 

"To  this  end  we  demand  the  protection  and  permanency  of  all 
civil  and  political  rights  of  our  citizens,  without  discrimination 
as  to  race  or  color." 


228  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    ELECTIVE    FRANCHISE, 
DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTIONS,   1903 

MARYLAND,  "  We  believe  that  the  political  destinies  of  Maryland  should  be 

1903.  shaped  and  controlled  by  the  white  people  of  the  State,  and  while 
we  disclaim  any  purpose  to  do  any  injustice  whatever  to  our  colored 
population,   we  declare  without   reserve   our   resolute  purpose  to 
preserve  in  every  conservative  and  constitutional  way  the  political 
ascendency  of  our  race." 

MASSACHUSETTS,       "We  should  condemn  the  lynchings  in  the  South  or  in  the  North 
1903.  as  we  condemn  massacres  in  Russia  or  murders  in  the  Philippines. 

Hence  we  favor  an  early  declaration  of  our  purpose  in  the  Philip- 
pines, and  oppose  the  repeal  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment." 

SOUTH  CAROLINA,       "We  make  generous  provision  for  the  education  of  their  (colored 

1904.  people's)  children.     In  their  efforts  to  acquire  property,  to  secure 
homes,  to  enjoy  liberty  and  to  elevate  their  race,  we  accord  them 
the  full  protection  of  the  law. 

"  But  we  believe  it  to  be  indispensable  to  the  permanency  of  peace 
in  the  State  and  essential  to  the  welfare  of  our  people,  white  and 
colored  alike,  that  in  matters  political  the  will  of  the  white  people 
should  be  supreme,  and  we  avow  our  purpose  to  maintain  white 
supremacy." 


APPENDIX   C  (CHAPTER   VII)* 

COPY  OF  REPUBLICAN  CLUB'S  OBSERVATIONS  THAT  WERE  MADE  PUBLIC 
UPON  THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  FIRST  REDUCTION  BILL  IN  THE  FIFTY- 
EIGHTH  CONGRESS. — EXPLANATION  OF  .ITS  BASIS  AND  TABLE  GIVING 
FIGURES  RESPECTING  SAME. — MEMORANDUM  RESPECTING  SAME. 

BRIEF  SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FIFTY-NINTH  CONGRESS  IN  SUPPORT  OF 
REDUCTION  BILL  INTRODUCED  IN  IT  BY  REPRESENTATIVE  BENNET,  OF 
NEW  YORK. 

Conceding  that  a  reduction  is  to  be  made,  the  practical  question  is, 
to  what  extent,  in  each  of  the  eleven  affected  States,  shall  the  representa- 
tion be  reduced? 

If  it  is  to  be  made  on  very  conservative  lines  the  figures  can  be  easily 
arrived  at  from  the  Twelfth  Census  Tables  published  since  the  Apportion- 
ment Act  of  January,  1901. 

Notorious  and  indisputable  facts  establish  one  class,  at  least,  as  included 
among  the  male  citizens  of  twenty-one  years  of  age,  whose  right  to  vote 
(to  use  the  language  of  the  United  States  Constitution)  has  been  denied 
or  in  some  way  has  been  abridged.  That  indubitable  class  consists  of 
the  illiterate  colored  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

If  the  reduction  of  representation  be  limited  exclusively  to  this  class, 
the  eleven  States  of  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana, 
Mississippi,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Virginia  and 
Texas,  now  having  ninety-eight  (98)  members  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, would  lose  nineteen  representatives. 

This  result  is  so  easily  established  from  the  official  tables  of  the  Twelfth 
Census  that  no  further  testimony  is  needed  to  warrant  a  reduction  of  at 
least  that  number  of  Congressmen,  based  on  the  conditions  existing  in  the 
year  1900: — conditions  that  for  all  practical  purposes  in  this  respect  have 
not  materially  changed  so  as  to  affect  the  result  of  the  calculations. 

It  is  a  mild  statement  of  the  truth,  that  in  the  eleven  States  named 
the  illiterate  negro  is  practically  excluded  from  participation  in  the  ballot. 
This  unassailable  truth  exists  quite  independently  of  any  provisions  in 
State  laws  or  Constitutions.  The  Election  Laws  of  any  of  these  eleven 
States  need  not  be  examined  to  determine  why  this  class  is  excluded, 

*  See  p.  93. 


230  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

because  the  fact  of  such  exclusion  is  everywhere  conceded.  That  which 
is  unlawful  if  directly  aimed  at  cannot  lawfully  be  accomplished  by  indi- 
rection. 

In  some  places  the  exclusion  consists  of  a  much  greater  number  of 
negroes  (practically  all  of  them)  who  on  a  variety  of  grounds  are  treated 
as  disqualified. 

In  no  State,  however,  can  it  be  said  that  the  excluded  class  is  less 
than  the  illiterate  negro  votables.  On  the  contrary,  in  every  State  the 
class  actually  excluded  is  numerically  largely  in  excess  of  the  illiterate 
negro  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

Thus  in  some  of  the  States  white  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years 
of  age  who  have  not  paid  specified  taxes,  within  particular  periods  of  time, 
or  who  have  not  the  prescribed  property  qualifications,  or  who  are  more 
or  less  illiterate,  are  nominally,  but  rarely  actually,  excluded  from  participa- 
tion in  the  ballot.  This  element,  however,  is  not  considered  in  arriving 
at  the  number  nineteen  (19),  nor  is  consideration  given  to  the  fact  that 
in  all  of  the  States  mentioned  a  large  number  of  negro  male  citizens  over 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  who  are  not  illiterate,  although  nominally  voters, 
yet  in  fact  are  by  various  devices  unconstitutionally  excluded  from  par- 
ticipation in  the  ballot. 

If  the  calculations  were  based  on  the  reasonable  assumption  that  sub- 
stantially all  the  negroes  are  excluded  from  voting,  the  reduction  in  the 
several  States  mentioned  would  aggregate  about  thirty-five  (35)  instead 
of  nineteen  (19). 

The  reduction  by  nineteen  represents  solely  and  exclusively  a  reduction 
that,  in  the  States  mentioned,  is  based  upon  the  assumption  that  only  the 
illiterate  male  negro  over  twenty-one  years  of  age  is  excluded  from  the 
suffrage,  while  in  truth  many  more  are  excluded. 

A  proposed  reduction,  therefore,  by  only  nineteen  banishes  all  preliminary 
questions  involving  uncertainty  about  the  true  extent  of  the  reduction, 
when  ultimately  the  true  reduction  should  be  arrived  at  on  the  merits; 
and  only  presents  immediately  the  single  issue  of  reduction  or  no  reduction. 

The  figures  are  based  upon  the  lowest  practical  limit;  upon  a  limitation 
incapable  of  dispute. 

Conceding  for  arithmetical  purposes  such  to  be  the  limitation,  the  usual 
methods  afforded  by  the  Census  Tables  (not  available  when  the  apportion- 
ment bill  was  passed  in  1901)  are  employed  to  arrive  at  the  reductions 
stated  in  the  proposed  Bill. 

Unadulterated  arithmetic  only  and  the  Census  of  1900  are  employed 
to  figure  the  result.  (See  Table.) 


SECTIONALISM  UNMASKED 


231 


.2.5 

si 


10   co   10   co 


CM    CO 


CO 


IL 

S;|g 

O^  ^ 

.O  03  l* 


00    00 


c 

w 


00    CO 

Tf      CO 

CO     O3 


O  CO 
CD  CO 
CO  CM 


(M 

to 


CO 


CO 
CO 


CO 


CO 


<M 


03 


05 


3     10 

>    O 

T-H 

i-H 

O 

CO 
CM 

I—  1 
CO 
CO 

O3 
CO 

CO 

T-H 

CO 

CO 
03 
CO 

41 

CD 

03 
>    CO 

CM 

10 
CM 

O 
03 

10 

o 

CO 

CO 

00 

CO 
1C 

T-H 

CO 

CO 

G  o  go  co 
^-^Ss  co 


o   O 


00 


o 

1—  1 
CO 


CM 

CO 


CO 

co 


00        T-H 


00 


10 
o 


o 

iO 


CO 


9 

CO 


CD 


(M 

00 


CO 
00 


CO 


CD 


co 

CM 


CO 


00 


CO 


i 

& 

d 

g 

^ 

! 

1 

^ 

C5 

T 

1 
a 

^ouisiana  

lississippi  .  .  . 

L  Carolina  .  .  . 

i.  Carolina.  .  .  . 

1    s 

fS         X 
<O          4 

at 
'c 

'S 

^ 

S  fc  02  H  H 


232  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

The  Constitutional  basis  of  the  new  reduction  is  the  proportion  which 
the  excluded  "male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens 
twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State." 

The  most  conservative  basis  that  can  be  stated  and  applied  to  any  of 
the  affected  States  is  the  basis  of  negro  illiteracy.  Such  a  basis  as  the 
limit  of  exclusion  is  largely  below  the  actual  truth. 

It  results  in  a  reduction  of  only  nineteen  (19);  where  the  real  and  truth- 
ful reduction,  based  on  the  total  actual  negro  exclusion,  should  be  thirty- 
five. 

This  conservatism  holds  out  a  premium  to  each  State  to  reduce  its 
illiterate  population,  and  to  extend  its  suffrage  on  reasonable  grounds, 
applicable  alike  to  both  races,  and  not  to  trespass  upon  the  United  States 
Constitutional  restriction.  It  disappoints  the  "moss-back"  howlers  who 
shout  about  "negro  equality."  It  recognizes  negro  illiteracy  only  as  the 
basis  of  the  calculation.  Therefore  it  concerns  no  Northern  State  repre- 
sentation. 

It  enables  the  issue  of  practical  legislation  to  be  proffered  immediately, 
and  without  experimental  delay  or  resultless  exploration  by  new  com- 
mittees. 

It  requires  no  special  committee  to  investigate  that  which  is  immediately 
accessible  to  the  standing  committees  of  both  Houses  and  to  every  Con- 
gressman. 

A  single  word  further:  This  is  not  a  new  apportionment.  It  is  only  a 
reduction  or  representation  in  certain  States,  arrived  at  on  the  basis  of 
the  existing  apportionment,  and  does  not  itself  disturb  the  apportionment 
under  the  present  law. 

The  present  number  of  the  House  of  Representatives  is  386,  the  mem- 
bers being  apportioned  to  each  State,  according  to  population. 

When  Congress  finds  that  the  facts  exist  in  any  State  which  under  the 
Constitution  call  for  a  reduction,  Congress  specifies  the  particular  reduction 
to  be  made;  and  will  naturally  provide  that  when  in  the  judgment  of 
Congress  such  facts  no  longer  exist  the  reduction  will  cease;  and  the 
original  allotment  declared  by  the  Apportionment  Act  will  be  restored. 

Article  Fourteen  of  the  Constitution  contemplates  that  this  reduction 
and  restoration  "shall"  be  made  at  any  time  when  in  the  judgment  of 
Congress  the  facts  call  for  it.  The  Constitution  makes  it  mandatory 
upon  Congress  to  reduce  the  representation  accordingly  when  the  facts 
do  call  for  it. 

That  the  illiterate  negro  is  excluded  from  the  suffrage  in  the  eleven 
States  mentioned  is  one  of  the  facts  that  call  for  such  legislation. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  233 

The  Republican  party  is  under  obligations  to  the  people  of  the  whole 
country  to  reduce  the  representation. 
Dated  December,  1904. 


BEFORE    THE    59TH    CONGRESS 

IN  THE  MATTER  OF  THE  BILL  TO  REDUCE  REPRESENTATION  IN  ELEVEN 
STATES,  AND  AMENDING  THE  ACTS  OF  JANUARY   16,   1901 

MEMORANDUM    IN    SUPPORT    OF   BILL* 


This  is  an  act  providing  for  temporary  reduction  of  the  Representatives 
from  the  eleven  States  named. 

Since  the  passage  of  the  present  apportionment  law,  approved  January 
16th,  1901,  to  which  this  Bill  is  offered  as  an  amendment,  much  of  the 
information  gathered  by  the  Twelfth  Census  has  been  further  tabulated. 
In  many  special  forms  it  has  been  published  and  made  available  in  con- 
nection with  the  elections  and  the  returns  of  elections  held  in  1900,  1902 
and  1904  for  Presidential  electors,  Representatives  in  Congress,  and  for 
other  offices.  These  publications  emphasize  the  notorious  and  indisputable 
facts  of  political  history  that  the  suffrage  has  in  some  vray  been  practically 
abridged,  so  as  to  intrude  upon  the  provisions  of  the  Fifteenth  Article 
of  the  Constitution,  which  prohibits  such  abridgment  in  any  form  "on 
account  of  race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 

If  the  abridgment  of  the  suffrage  is  really  confined  to  this  class  of  citizens, 
the  publications  mentioned  furnish  data  by  which  to  apply  the  "reduction" 
of  representation  specified  in  the  Fourteenth  Article  of  the  Constitution. 
If  the  abridgment  shall  be  found  to  extend  beyond  this  class,  then  Con- 
gress can  readily  determine  any  further  facts,  and  what  shall  be  the  "ap- 
propriate legislation"  to  ensure  the  enforcement  and  reduction  contem- 
plated by  the  Constitution,  under  the  language  expressed  in  its  Articles 
Fourteen  and  Fifteen. 

That  further  "appropriate  legislation"  is  immediately  requisite,  and 
is  demanded  by  the  actual  situation  and  by  the  unrestrained  violation 
and  evasion  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  must  be  conceded  by  all  ad- 
herents of  the  United  States  Constitution.  Whether  that  violation  or 
evasion  is  committed  under  the  guise  of  State  enactments,  or  in  defiance 
of  all  law,  is  of  no  consequence  to  Congress,  so  long  as  it  exists  in  fact; 
and  concerning  that  fact  Congress  exercises  its  judgment. 
*  For  copy  of  this  Bill  see  foot  of  this  Brief,  p.  241. 


234  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

II 


There  is  a  popular  fallacy  that  all  questions  of  violations  of  the  United 
States  Constitution  are  exclusively  judicial  and  are  to  be  settled  only  by 
the  Courts.  It  is  upon  this  misleading  theory  that  advocates  of  non-action 
on  the  lines  of  this  Bill  declare,  with  more  or  less  sincerity,  that  an  inspec- 
tion of  State  Constitutions  or  State  laws  will  fail  to  disclose  discrimination 
on  account  of  race.  Thereupon  an  idle  comparison  of  interpretations 
and  of  paragraphs  and  phrases  is  instituted  with  a  view  to  engage  in  an 
academic  discussion  quite  apart  from  the  essential  and  undeniable  facts 
of  actual  discrimination  at  the  polling  places  and  at  elections  and  registra- 
tions. 

Touching  the  existence  and  extent  of  any  such  state  of  facts,  the  Con- 
gress sits  as  the  exclusive  judge.  A  determination  by  Congress  upon  the 
facts  is  not  in  any  wise  subject  to  the  judiciary,  nor  to  the  outcome  of 
any  proceeding  capable  of  being  entertained  by  any  judicial  tribunal. 

The  performance  by  Congress  of  its  Constitutional  duty  by  reason  of 
such  facts  is  a  function  as  independent  of  the  judiciary  as  would  be  its 
vote  to  declare  war,  to  impose  a  tax,  or  to  appropriate  money.  It  is  a 
Constitutional  duty,  too,  of  a  political  nature,  and  involves  a  determination 
of  a  political  character. 

Nor  will  it  answer  to  leave  facts  of  this  nature  to  be  adjudged  by  the 
Executive  Department;  for  instance,  by  a  Bureau  organized  exclusively 
for  statistical  purposes.  Its  files  of  information  would  not  relate  to  com- 
munity violations  of  law  which  in  the  nature  of  things  would  not  become 
matters  of  local  or  general  record. 

The  unappealable  discretionary  decisions  of  local  election  officials  cut 
no  figure  in  statistical  records. 

The  judgment  as  to  the  facts  should  be  that  of  the  Legislative  Depart- 
ment of  the  government;  and  not  that  of  the  Executive  or  of  the  Judiciary. 

By  the  Constitution  the  duty  is  enjoined  upon  Congress  to  enact  certain 
legislation  when  the  described  facts  exist  which,  under  the  Constitution, 
call  for  that  legislation. 

It  would  be  as  reasonable  for  Congress,  before  performing  its  legislative 
duties,  to  await  a  jury  verdict  in  some  individual  law  suit,  more  or  less 
injudiciously  prosecuted  or  defended,  as  it  would  be  for  Congress  to  dis- 
avow, or  to  abstain  from  performing,  a  Congressional  duty  on  the  pretext 
that  no  court  had  declared  that  the  facts  called  for  legislation.  Congress 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  235 

is  the  sole  judge  of  what  legislation  "appropriate"  to  carry  into  effect 
the  specified  provisions  of  the  Constitution. 

The  Constitution  is  explicit  that  the  reduction  of  representation  shall 
be  made  when  the  facts  described  exist;  and  the  judgment  of  nobody  else, 
nor  that  of  any  other  tribunal,  can  be  substituted  for  the  judgment  of 
Congress  as  to  whether  the  facts  do  or  do  not  exist. 

The  Bill,  therefore,  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  in  practice  discrimina- 
tion exists,  at  least  to  a  given  extent;  and  that  thereupon  a  reduction  should 
be  decreed  as  stated  in  the  Bill. 

Ill 

The  fact  is  notorious  and  undeniable  that  in  certain  States  suffrage  has 
been  abridged  somehow,  or  in  some  way,  beyond  the  limitations  permissible 
under  Articles  Fourteen  and  Fifteen  of  the  United  States  Constitution. 

In  relation  to  the  States  where,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Congress,  such 
conditions  exist — and  that  they  do  exist  in  some  instances  is  a  circum- 
stance beyond  dispute — obedience  to  the  mandate  of  the  Constitution 
would  seem  to  call  for  "appropriate  legislation"  towards  reducing  the 
representation  of  such  States  in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral  College,  on 
the  basis  of  the  proportion  which  the  excluded  male  citizens  of  said  States 
over  twenty-one  years  of  age  bears  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens 
over  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

While  the  lawful  regulation  of  the  suffrage  by  the  States  has  always 
been  jealously  guarded,  the  limitations  upon  restrictions  of  the  suffrage, 
as  declared  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  are  paramount, 
and  constitute  the  "supreme  law  of  the  land,"  and  are  to  be  obeyed  by 
practical  observance — any  usage,  local  law,  or  State  Constitution  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding. 

What  cannot  lawfully  be  done  directly,  cannot  lawfully  be  accomplished 
by  indirection. 

That  in  some  States,  as  exhibited  by  their  published  election  returns, 
less  than  one-half,  and  in  one  instance,  less  than  one-eighth,  of  the  white 
male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  substantially  all  of  the 
colored  citizens,  abstain  from  voting,  is  a  condition  of  the  electorate 
alarming  under  democratic  institutions. 

The  explanation,  frequently  paraded,  of  the  fact  that  the  elections  are 
usually  preceded  by  white  primaries,  only  serves  to  emphasize  the  fact  of 
discrimination. 

The  Constitution  confides  to  Congress  the  duty  of  enacting  such  legisla- 
tion as  the  conditions  in  these  respects  shall  be  found  to  warrant. 


236  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

The  Constitution  declares  that  Congress  SHALL  reduce  the  representa- 
tion whenever  the  suffrage  shall  be  "in  any  way  abridged." 

In  practice  it  having  been  more  or  less  abridged  unlawfully,  the  question 
remains,  how  shall  that  abridgment  be  measured?  That  abridgment  is 
not  to  escape  any  measurement  on  any  account  whatever.  It  is  to  be 
measured  by  Congress ;  and  it  is  immaterial  whether  the  actual  abridgment 
is  performed  in  accordance  with  State  laws  and  regulations,  or  in  violation 
of  all  laws.  Nor  is  the  abridgment  immune  from  Congressional  observa- 
tion because  it  is  accomplished  in  violation  of  the  United  States  Constitu- 
tion. That  the  abridgment  is  occasioned  by  the  denial  of  the  suffrage  on 
account  of  race  or  color  does  not  remove  the  fact  of  actual  abridgment 
from  Congressional  consideration.  Congress  is  to  measure  the  aggregate 
of  the  persons  against  whom  the  suffrage  has  been  "in  any  way  abridged," 
except  for  crime  or  participation  in  rebellion;  and  having  established  for 
itself  this  figure  to  place  it  in  a  proportion  to  the  total  male  citizens  of 
the  State  over  twenty-one  years  of  age ;  and  by  this  proportion  the  reduc- 
tion is  to  be  made. 

IV 

THE  FIFTEENTH  AMENDMENT  PROHIBITS  DISCRIMINATION 
ON    ACCOUNT    OF   COLOR 

One  of  the  most  efficient  methods  of  securing  obedience  to  law  is  to 
minimize  the  temptations  to  break  the  law. 

The  United  States  Constitution  prohibits  discrimination  against  the 
negro  in  respect  to  the  suffrage. 

THE    DISCRIMINATION    EXISTS 

From  Virginia  to  Texas  there  is  discrimination.  No  sane  man  denies 
it.  State  Constitutions,  State  laws,  State  election  boards,  need  not  be 
examined  to  prove  the  fact.  Besides,  on  the  face  of  documents  it  may 
not  appear. 

But  the  existence  of  the  fact  is  notorious,  undeniable,  indisputable, 
and  undisputed. 

In  some  States  there  is  nominally  no  legal  discrimination  against  the 
negro  capable  of  being  discerned  in  the  text  of  any  statute.  Nevertheless 
the  discrimination  exists  in  such  States. 

In  some  States  the  letter  of  the  law  is  openly  avowed  to  have  been 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  237 

framed  so  as  to  conceal  the  discrimination  that  is  proclaimed  as  the  real 
motive  actuating  the  creation  of  the  law  itself.  Of  course  the  discrimina- 
tion exists  in  these  States. 

The  fact  remains  that  discrimination,  more  or  less,  exists  in  each  and 
every  one  of  the  eleven  Southern  States  mentioned  in  the  Bill.  The 
dominant  political  power — the  "oligarchy" — in  those  States,  gives  unre- 
strained voice  to  the  fixed  purpose  that  this  historic  condition  of  things 
shall  not  be  disturbed. 

Just  how  and  when  it  shall  be  disturbed  and  remedied  is  not  the  im- 
mediate issue  presented  by  this  Bill.  That  is  a  future  question,  and  one 
it  may  be  for  the  near  future.  In  due  time,  however,  good  sense  and  sound 
judgment  will  solve  it  in  some  wise  American  way. 

Meanwhile,  to  what  extent  is  there  negro  discrimination? 

Out  of  the  great  mass  of  colored  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  the  number  nominally  and  actually  permitted  to  vote  is  so  insig- 
nificant that  it  may  be  ignored.  If  considered  it  would  not  change  the 
result  to  one  more,  or  to  one  less,  Congressman.  In  some  States  it  is 
nothing.  In  other  States  it  is  so  trifling  that,  allowing  for  the  most 
extravagant  estimate,  the  figure  is  so  small  that  its  reception  as  a  factor 
in  the  calculations  toward  reduction  would  not  affect  the  result  to  the 
extent  of  a  single  representative.  It  need  not  be  considered. 

Negro  male  citizens  over  twenty-one  years  of  age  are  practically  excluded 
from  the  suffrage  in  the  eleven  States  mentioned.  Here  is  a  definite 
factor. 

Take  that  factor,  as  it  appears  in  the  Census  tables  now  available,  and 
the  rest  of  the  question  of  representation  (under  the  present  apportion- 
ment) will  be  found  to  be  nothing  but  a  computation  in  simple  arithmetic. 

By  figuring  the  reduction  of  representation  on  this  basis,  under  the 
rule  of  arithmetic  prescribed  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the  United 
States  Constitution,  the  result  for  each  State  is  obtained  substantially  as 
set  out  in  the  Bill.  Fractions  of  representatives  are  treated  in  the  method 
usual  in  apportioning  representatives: — the  results  being  expressed  in 
whole  numbers,  according  to  the  size  of  the  outstanding  fractions. 

Thus  the  basis  of  the  Bill  is  the  fact  of  violation  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  of  the  Constitution.  It  enacts  a  first  step  in  the  "appropriate 
legislation"  called  for  from  Congress  by  the  tenor  of  both  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments  of  the  United  States  Constitution.  Both 
Amendments  are  applicable,  and  harmoniously  operate  upon  the  con- 
ditions their  creators  sagaciously  anticipated  and  provided  for. 


238  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 


It  is  a  fiction  that  may  be  styled  heresy,  which  under  the  events  of 
history  should  be  treated  as  extinct,  that  the  United  States  Constitution 
operates  only  upon  the  governments  of  States,  and  does  not  immediately 
and  directly  operate  upon  the  doings  of  local  officials,  acting  under  the 
direction  of  municipal  regulations  or  State  enactments. 

This  observation  is  only  made  because  sometimes  it  is  erroneously 
urged  that  if  such  local  enactments  on  their  face  do  not  establish  unlawful 
discriminations,  United  States  legislators  and  officials  must  acquiesce  in 
successful  evasions  and  violations  of  fundamental  law. 

Repeated  declarations  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
have  established  the  recognized  principle  of  Constitutional  law  that, 
though  a  local  regulation,  whether  an  ordinance  of  a  municipality  or  a  State 
enactment,  or  a  State  Constitution,  be  in  itself  innocuous  and  "fair  on  its 
face  and  impartial  in  appearance,  yet  if  it  is  applied  and  administered  by 
public  authority  with  an  evil  eye  and  an  unequal  hand,  so  as  practically 
to  make  unjust  and  illegal  discriminations  between  persons  in  similar 
circumstances  material  to  their  rights,"  etc.,  the  denial  of  those  rights  "  is 
still  within  the  prohibition  of  the  Constitution." 

This  irrefragable  principle  of  interpretation  and  of  Federal  action,  as 
above  quoted,  has  been  sanctioned  and  reiterated  by  the  highest  tribunal 
in  the  land.  See  the  opinions  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  cited 
in  the  case  of  Rogers  v.  Alabama  192  U.  S.  p.  231,  where  it  is  further  said 
that  "  Whenever  by  any  action  of  a  State,  whether  through  its  legislature, 
through  its  Courts,  or  through  its  executive  or  administrative  officers,  all 
persons  of  the  African  race  are  excluded,  solely  because  of  their  race  or 
color"  from  a  Constitutional  right,  Federal  action  is  proper.  Among  the 
cases  cited  by  the  Court  on  this  proposition  (at  page  231)  are  Carter  v. 
Texas  177  U.  S.  p.  447;  Slander  v.  West  Virginia  100  U.  S.  303;  Neal  v. 
Delaware  103  U.  S.  397;  Gibson  v.  Mississippi  162  U.  S.  565. 

A  manifest  denial  of  rights  under  the  Federal  Constitution  committed 
by  the  authorities  of  the  State  was  upheld  as  adequate  cause  for  the 
direct  intervention  of  Federal  power. 

In  Yick  Wo  v.  Hopkins  118  U.  S.  p.  356  the  same  principle  is  further 
declared  and  applied  where  there  existed  practically  unjust  and  illegal 
discriminations: — Mr.  Justice  MATTHEWS  citing  also  Henderson  v.  Mayor 
92  U.  S.  259 ;  Chy  Lung  v.  Freeman  ib.  275 ;  Ex  parte  Virginia  100  U.  S.  339 ; 
Soon  Wing  v.  Crowley  113  ib.  703;  and  other  cases. 

What  therefore  is  true  about  the  relation  of  the  Judicial  power  of  the 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  239 

United  States,  in  its  application  to  the  acts  of  persons,  be  they  individuals 
acting  under  the  color  of  State  laws,  or  municipal  regulations,  or  in  disre- 
gard of  all  law,  is  equally  true  in  respect  to  all  the  actions  of  Congress. 
Within  its  Constitutional  limitations  Congress  is  the  judge  of  the  conditions 
that  call  for  "appropriate  legislation";  and  of  the  nature  and  extent  of 
the  laws  to  be  enacted  to  remedy  evils,  or  to  secure  rights  and  to  promote 
the  general  welfare. 

With  the  Legislature,  and  not  with  the  Judiciary  rest  the  measures  to 
afford  protection  and  security  for  fundamental  political  rights.  From 
1870  to  1894  laws  of  Congress  existed  providing  machinery  to  protect 
and  to  secure  the  purity  of  elections.  In  the  absence  of  specific  legislation 
at  the  present  time  there  is  no  function  for  the  Federal  Judiciary  whereby 
that  protection  and  security  may  be  afforded. 

This  duty  rests  upon  Congress  if  in  its  judgment  the  conditions  require 
legislation.  Its  discretion  in  this  respect  is  absolute;  and  its  judgment 
upon  the  conditions  is  without  appeal.  Political  conditions  and  political 
rights  are  adjudged  by  Congress  and  not  by  the  Courts. 

The  political  rights  of  the  negro  claiming  to  be  unconstitutionally  dis- 
criminated against  have  no  standing  for  enforcement  by  the  Federal 
Judiciary. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  expressly  relegated  such 
claims  to  Congress.  Mr.  Justice  HOLMES,  in  Giles  v.  Harris,  189  U.  S. 
p.  475,  in  refusing  to  compel  a  registration  board  to  enroll  names  at  the 
suit  of  a  negro,  for  himself  and  others,  claiming  to  be  unconstitutionally 
discriminated  against,  expressly  declared  that  the  court  could  not  under- 
take "TO  ENFORCE  POLITICAL  RIGHTS."  "What  can  it  do  to  enforce  any 
order  that  it  may  make?"  "This  is  alleged  to  be  a  conspiracy  of  a  State, 
although  the  State  is  not  and  could  not  be  made  a  party  to  the  bill.  The 
Circuit  Court  has  no  constitutional  power  to  control  its  action  by  any 
direct  means,  and  if  we  leave  the  State  out  of  consideration  the  Court  has 
as  little  practical  power  to  deal  with  the  people  of  the  State  as  a  body. 
The  Bill  imports  that  the  great  mass  of  the  white  population  intends  to 
keep  the  blacks  from  voting.  To  meet  such  an  intent  something  more 
than  ordering  the  plaintiff's  name  to  be  inscribed  on  the  lists  of  1902  will  be 
needed.  //  the  conspiracy  and  intent  exist,  a  name  on  a  piece  of  paper  will 
not  defeat  them.  Unless  we  are  prepared  to  supervise  the  voting  in  that 
State  by  officers  of  the  Court  it  seems  to  us  that  all  the  plaintiffs  could  get 
from  equity  would  be  AN  EMPTY  FORM. 

"Apart  from  damages  to  the  individual,  RELIEF  FROM  A  GREAT  POLITICAL 
WRONG,  if  done  as  alleged  by  the  people  of  a  State  and  the  State  itself, 


240  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

MUST  BE  GIVEN  BY  THEM,  Or  BY  THE  LEGISLATIVE  AND  POLITICAL  DEPART- 
MENT OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES"  (p.  488). 

Hence  it  is  to  Congress,  and  not  to  the  Judiciary,  that  appeals  must  be 
made  for  the  amelioration  of  unconstitutional  discriminations. 

The  first  step  is  to  reduce  representation  in  accordance  with  the  existing 
facts. 

This  being  done  the  good  sense  of  the  people  in  the  affected  States  could 
operate  to  restore  IMPARTIAL  SUFFRAGE. 

VI 
THE  NORTHERN  STATES  NOT  AFFECTED 

There  is  a  vague  notion  afloat  that  upon  the  basis  of  illiteracy  the  repre- 
sentation of  Connecticut,  or  of  Massachusetts,  or  of  California  would  be 
reduced.  The  minority  leader  of  the  House  has  echoed  that  claim  evi- 
dently without  having  consulted  the  Census.  Computations  from  the 
Twelfth  (1900)  Census  tables  show  that  those  States  would  not  lose  a  single 
representative; — unless  such  fractions  of  a  member  as  22-100  (Mass,  or 
Cali.),  or  9-100  (Conn.)  of  a  Representative  can  be  properly  counted  as  an 
entire  Congressman.  Whereas,  by  counting  the  white  illiterates  in  the 
States  mentioned  in  the  Bill,  the  reduction  would  be  substantially  enlarged. 

Thus  Alabama  should  be  reduced  one  more  than  as  stated  in  the  Bill, 
and  also  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas  and 
Virginia  should  be  reduced  each  one  more. 

Hence  it  appears  that  if  the  basis  of  figures  for  the  Bill  shall  rest  upon 
the  assumption  that  all  the  colored  persons  and  all  the  illiterate  white 
votables  are  excluded  from  the  suffrage,  the  reductions  covered  by  the 
Bill  would  obviously  figure  up  at  an  aggregate  of  forty-two,  instead  of  the 
thirty-five  (distributed  among  the  States  as  shown  on  a  schedule). 

Upon  the  Census  figures  if  illiteracy  only,  regardless  of  color,  be  reckoned 
as  the  basis  of  calculations,  the  reductions  in  the  States  specified  in  this 
Bill  would  be  twenty-six. 

Herewith  are  some  Republican  party  notes,  together  with  a  copy  of 
Reports  and  Resolutions  adopted  by  The  Republican  Club. 

Dated  54  West  40th  Street,  New  York,  December,  1905. 

Respectfully  submitted  for  the  Committee  on  National  affairs  of  THE 
REPUBLICAN  CLUB  OP  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK. 

JAMES  W.  HA  WES,  Chairman  of  Committee. 

WILLIAM  GREENWOOD,  Secretary. 

EDWARD  LAUTERBACH,      )  Q,  Counsel. 

HENRY  EDWIN  TREMAIN,  ) 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  241 

COPT  OF  HOUSE  or  REPRESENTATIVES  BILL  INTRODUCED  BY  REPRESENTATIVE 
BENNET  IN  THE  FIFTY-NINTH  CONGRESS  (DECEMBER,  1905),  REFERRED  TO  IN  CHAPTER 
VII  OF  THIS  VOLUME. 

An  Act  to  Amend  an  Act  entitled:  "An  act  making  an  apportionment  of  Representa- 
tives in  Congress  among  the  Several  States  under  the  Twelfth  Census." 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America 
in  Congress  assembled,  that  the  Act  of  Congress  passed  at  the  Second  Session  of  the 
Fifty-sixth  Congress,  entitled  "An  act  making  an  apportionment  of  Representatives 
in  Congress  among  the  several  States  under  the  Twelfth  Census,"  approved  January 
sixteenth,  nineteen  hundred  and  one,  and  numbered  Chapter  Ninety-three,  be  and 
the  same  is  hereby  amended  as  follows,  that  is  to  say: 

After  Section  Five  of  said  act  there  shall  be  added  as  Sections  Six,  Seven,  Eight 
and  Nine,  the  following  sections,  namely: 

SECTION  6.  Whereas,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  prescribes  at  Article 
Fourteen,  section  two,  that  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  specified  in  said 
article  is  "denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State,  being  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridged,  except  for  participa- 
tion in  rebellion  or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall  be  reduced  in 
the  proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number 
of  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State";  and  further  prescribes  at  Article 
Fifteen  that  "the  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or 
abridged  by  the  United  States  or  by  any  State,  on  account  of  race,  color  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude";  and,  whereas,  the  Congress  is  satisfied  that  the  right  of  male 
inhabitants  of  certain  States,  being  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  to  wit:  of  colored  male  inhabitants  being  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  to  vote  at  some  of  said  specified  elections  has  since  the  passage 
of  the  act  hereby  amended,  in  fact  been  denied  or  in  some  way  abridged;  and  that 
the  representation  of  the  States  hereinafter  specified  should  be  reduced  pursuant  to 
the  Constitution:  Now,  therefore,  Be  it  enacted  that  on  and  after  the  third  day  of 
March,  in  the  year  nineteen  hundred  and  seven,  and  thereafter  until  otherwise  enacted, 
the  representation  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  State  of  Alabama  instead 
of  being  nine  Representatives  shall  be  five  Representatives;  and  the  State  of  Arkansas, 
instead  of  being  seven  Representatives,  shall  be  five  Representatives;  and  the  State  of 
Florida,  instead  of  being  three  Representatives,  shall  be  two  Representatives;  and  the 
State  of  Georgia,  instead  of  being  eleven  Representatives,  shall  be  six  Representatives; 
and  the  State  of  Louisiana,  instead  of  being  seven  Representatives,  shall  be  four  Repre- 
sentatives; and  the  State  of  Mississippi,  instead  of  being  eight  Representatives,  shall  be 
three  Representatives;  and  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  instead  of  being  ten  Representa- 
tives, shall  be  seven  Representatives;  and  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  instead  of  being 
seven  Representatives,  shall  be  three  Representatives;  and  the  State  of  Tennessee, 
instead  of  being  ten  Representatives,  shall  be  eight  Representatives;  and  the  State  of 
Texas,  instead  of  being  sixteen  Representatives,  shall  be  thirteen  Representatives; 
and  the  State  of  Virginia,  instead  of  being  ten  Representatives,  shall  be  seven  Represen- 
tatives; and  that,  therefore,  the  House  of  Representatives,  instead  of  being  composed 
of  three  hundred  and  eighty-six  members,  as  provided  for  in  the  act  hereby  amended, 
shall  be  composed  of  three  hundred  and  fifty-one  members.  Provided,  nevertheless, 
that  whenever  hereafter  it  shall  appear  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Congress  that  the 
right  to  vote  at  the  elections  specified  in  Section  Two,  Article  Fourteen  of  the  Constitu- 
tion in  any  of  the  States  last  specified,  is  no  longer  denied  or  in  any  way  abridged  to 


242 

colored  male  inhabitants  thereof  being  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  then  the  number  of  members  apportioned  to  such  State  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  by  Section  One  of  the  aforesaid  act  of  nineteen  hundred  and  one, 
hereby  amended,  may  be  restored  to  said  State  by  a  further  amendment  to  the  afore- 
said act.  This  reduction  shall  apply  to  the  next  election  for  members  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  from  said  last  mentioned  States  in  the  Sixtieth  Congress. 

SECTION  7.  Unless  the  Legislatures  of  any  of  the  specified  States,  whose  repre- 
sentation is  reduced  by  this  act,  shall  have  provided  before  the  time  fixed  by  law 
for  the  next  election  of  Representatives  therein,  for  the  election  of  Representatives 
by  districts,  after  the  manner  denoted  in  Section  Four  of  the  aforesaid  act  of  nine- 
teen hundred  and  one  hereby  amended,  then  the  whole  number  of  Representatives 
from  such  States  as  apportioned  by  the  reduction  hereby  established,  shall  be  elected 
at  large,  as  provided  for  in  said  aforesaid  Section  Four,  in  respect  to  cases  where  the 
number  of  Representatives  provided  for  in  any  State  shall  be  less  than  it  was  before 
the  change  was  directed  to  be  made. 

SECTION  8.  The  second  section  of  the  act  hereby  amended  is  hereby  amended 
so  as  to  read  as  follows:  That  whenever  a  new  State  is  admitted  to  the  Union  the  Repre- 
sentative or  Representatives  assigned  to  it  shall  be  in  addition  to  the  aggregate  number 
to  which  all  the  States  may  be  entitled  under  the  operations  of  the  aforesaid  act  en- 
titled, "An  Act  making  an  apportionment  of  Representatives  in  Congress  among  the 
several  States  under  the  Twelfth  Census,"  approved  January  16th,  1901,  and  of  this 
amendatory  act,  and  of  any  further  acts  amendatory  of  and  supplementary  thereto. 

SECTION  9.  That  all  acts  and  parts  of  acts  inconsistent  with  this  act  are  hereby 
repealed. 

MEMORANDUM  MADE  PUBLIC  ON  THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  THIS  BILL 

This  Bill  is  framed  upon  the  Census  (1900)  Tables  published  since  the  Apportion- 
ment Act  of  January  16th,  1901,  to  which  this  Bill  is  amendatory. 

The  aggregates  treated  as  excluded  from  the  suffrage  in  each  of  the  States  mentioned 
are  all  negro  votables  (i.e.,  colored  male  citizens  over  twenty-one).  The  few  instances 
in  those  States  where  the  colored  voters  are  not  in  fact  made  the  subject  of  actual 
discrimination  would  not  in  any  State  suffice  to  change  the  result  from  the  figures 
stated  in  the  Bill. 

It  requires  no  evidence  beyond  the  notorious  historical  fact  for  Congress  to  adjudge, 
what  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  negro  is  practically  excluded  from  the  suffrage  in  the 
States  mentioned  in  the  Bill,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  nominal  provisions  of  their 
respective  Constitutions  or  election  laws. 

The  Bill  is  very  conservative. 

How  much  further,  meritoriously  considered,  for  instance  upon  the  basis  of  white 
and  black  illiterates,  the  reduction  might  be  extended,  can  readily  be  arrived  at  by  the 
same  Census  Tables.  On  the  basis  of  illiteracy  these  tables  would  show  a  much  larger 
reduction  than  the  reduction  by  thirty-five  in  the  States  specified  in  this  Bill.  In 
no  Northern  State  would  the  same  basis  figure  up  to  the  loss  of  a  single  representative. 

In  treating  fractions  of  representation  the  customary  method  is  used,  in  favor  of 
or  against  the  representation,  according  to  the  size  of  the  fractions.  The  arithmetical 
rule  is  that  prescribed  in  Article  XIV,  Section  Two  of  the  United  States  Constitution. 

The  ' ' apportionment "  remains  unchanged,  and  as  fixed  in  1901;  and  the  ' '  reduction  " 
in  any  case,  as  specified  in  the  Bill,  is  to  cease  when  the  facts  shall  warrant. 

This  bill  is  NOT  A  NEW  APPORTIONMENT;  but  works  temporary  and  local  reductions 
under  and  within  the  present  "apportionment." 


APPENDIX  D   (CHAPTER  IX) 

HISTORICAL  COMPARISONS. — THE   POLICY   OP  PERICLES  AND   OP  THE 
MODERN  SOUTH. — A  STUDY  WITH  A  MORAL. 


[Pericles,  the  greatest  statesman  of  ancient  Greece,  by  his  eloquence, 
sagacity  and  uprightness  of  character,  was  for  more  than  thirty  years  a 
leader  in  Athens.  Under  his  leadership  a  complete  democratization  of 
Athens  took  place.  The  public  offices,  hitherto  entirely  held  by  the  nobles, 
the  plutocrats  and  the  privileged  classes,  were  thrown  open  to  the  citizens, 
and  the  people,  instead  of  the  patrician  element,  really  ruled.  Pericles 
effected  great  Constitutional  changes  and  aimed  at  the  formation  of  a 
Hellenic  League  that  should  embrace  all  Greek  states.  Under  Pericles 
Athens  became  the  centre  of  all  that  was  best,  highest  and  noblest  in 
literature,  fine  arts  and  philosophy.  The  age  of  Pericles  was  a  veritable 
"Milky  Way"  of  great  men;  for  in  his  day,  at  Athens,  there  lived  the  poets 
jEschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Cratinus  and  Crates;  the  philosophers 
Anaxagoras,  Zeno,  Protagoras  and  Socrates;  Meton,  the  astronomer; 
Polygnotus,  the  painter;  and  Myron  and  Phidias,  the  sculptors — all  of 
these  household  names  calling  up  the  "golden  age"  of  Athenian  culture. 
Cotemporary  with  Pericles,  though  not  resident  at  Athens,  were  Herodotus, 
the  father  of  history  and  Hippocrates,  the  father  of  medicine;  while  at 
about  the  time  of  the  "passing"  of  Pericles  there  had  come,  or  were  about 
to  come,  on  the  world's  stage  and  to  send  their  names  "echoing  along  the 
corridors  of  time,"  such  colossal  geniuses  and  great  men  as  Thucydides 
and  Xenophon,  Aristophanes,  Isocrates,  Alcibiades  and  Plato.  In  Pericles 
all  the  lines  of  Greek  culture  and  aspiration,  intellectual  and  spiritual,  met 
and  became  harmonized.  But  alas!  Pericles  "fell  from  grace,"  and  either 
enacted  or  revived — authorities  differ — a  law  confining  the  rights  of  Athe- 
nian citizenship  to  persons  both  of  whose  parents  were  Athenian  citizens, 
pure  Hellenes.  In  the  year  444  B.C.  on  a  scrutiny  of  a  list  of  citizens  nearly 
five  thousand  persons  claiming  to  be  citizens  were  proved  to  be  aliens 
under  this  law  and  were  relegated  to  the  class  of  a  servile  population 
And  the  decadence  of  Greece  began. 


244  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Thus,  as  Mr.  Milholland  pointed  out  in  his  admirable  address  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  Boston,  Pericles  did  in  Athens  what  is  being  done  to-day  in  the  South, 
in  disfranchising  citizens  and  narrowing  the  suffrage.  (D.  H.  F.)] 

He  said  in  that  speech:  * 

"Athens  under  Pericles  was  the  most  perfect  illustration  of  democratic 
government  that  history  records  or  hieroglyphics  suggest.  In  form  and 
and  in  fact,  it  was  a  republic — always  keeping  mind  that  the  great  army 
of  slaves  had  no  place  whatever  in  its  political  consideration,  any  more 
than  they  had  with  us  before  the  war — except  to  give  extra  representation 
to  the  South  in  Congress.  The  Athenian  people  really  held  the  reins  of 
government.  Their  powers  were  not  even  delegated,  at  least  to  any  im- 
portant degree.  They  tried  law  cases  themselves,  voted  directly  upon 
all  public  expenditures,  authorizing  in  this  way  the  construction  of  those 
marvellous  architectural  masterpieces,  those  dreams  in  Pentelican  marble, 
with  which  the  great  leader  adorned  the  city  and  made  it  the  despair  of 
afl  succeeding  ages. 

"  But  he  was  also  responsible  for  a  blunder,  criminal,  though  the  motive 
may  have  been  pure,  as  monumental  in  its  way  as  the  Parthenon  itself 
or  the  grandest  creation  of  divine  complacency  wrought  by  young  Phidias ; 
for  it  is  the  irony  of  history  that  he  who  guided  Athens  and  through  Athens 
all  Hellas  to  the  highest  attainment  in  government,  in  art,  in  military  and 
naval  supremacy,  yes,  even  in  purity  of  administration  and  gentleness  of 
executive  decree,  should  have  been  the  man  who  laid  the  foundation  of 
his  country's  downfall  and  final  destruction. 

"  How  did  he  do  it?  By  doing  exactly  what  we  are  doing  now  or  supinely, 
indifferently,  disgracefully  permitting  to  be  done,  namely,  narrowing 
the  franchise  that  was  broadened  for  us  by  four  years  of  the  most  terrible 
Civil  War  in  history,  restricting  the  suffrage  that  our  fathers  left  unrestricted 
when  they  closed  their  labors  of  reconstruction.  Outbidding  for  public 
favor  his  aristocratic  rival,  Cimon,  Pericles  not  only  insisted  that  all 
citizens  who  had  previously  performed  their  public  functions  without 
compensation  should  be  paid  by  the  state  for  everything  that  they  were 
called  upon  to  do  in  a  public  capacity.  This  was  bad  enough,  but  he  went 
further  when  he  secured  the  adoption  of  a  decree  that  the  privilege  of 
full  citizenship  should  only  be  accorded  to  those  who  could  prove  their 
descent  from  pure  Hellenic  stock.  It  was  the  original  introduction  in 
popular  government  of  the  principle,  the  first  appearance  of  the  'Grand- 
father Clause  '  in  republican  institutions.  It  was  drastic,  and  as  effective 
in  Athens  as  it  has  proved  to  be  in  Alabama. 

*  Speech  of  John  E.  Milholland,  cited  in  the  text  at  chapter  IX,  p.  131. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  245 

"By  its  operation  no  less  than  one-third  of  the  Athenian  citizens  were 
cut  off  from  all  participation  in  the  political  activities  with  which  they 
had  been  previously  identified.  Deplorable  in  its  immediate  local  results, 
it  was  far  more  disastrous  in  its  ultimate  consequences,  for  with  the  de- 
struction of  Athenian  solidarity  followed  inevitably,  in  due  time,  the  end 
of  Grecian  unity.  A  protesting  minority  with  a  grievance  based  upon 
manifest  injustice  is  dangerous  under  any  conditions,  but  when  that  pro- 
testing minority  is  bone  of  the  bone  and  flesh  of  the  flesh  of  the  tyrannous 
disfranchising  majority,  as  was  the  case  in  Athens,  and  is  the  case  in  the 
United  States  to-day,  the  experiment  becomes  increasingly  dangerous. 
It  proved  so  in  Greece.  It  will  to  any  other  people.  A  nation  divided 
against  itself  has  a  hard  time  of  it.  This  was  true  in  Greece.  It  was 
true  in  Rome.  Both  defied  the  world;  both  fell  from  within,  not  from 
without,  for  so  it  was  writ,  that  'none  but  Anthony  should  conquer 
Anthony.' 

"  The  downfall  of  Greece  is  the  ancient  tale  of  the  'Grandfather's  Clause,' 
told  in  classic  diction,  but  all  the  eloquent  defence  and  splendid  achieve- 
ments of  a  Pericles  cannot  hide  the  mistake  and  shame  of  its  adoption 
any  more  than  history  can  conceal  its  terrible  destructive  workings.  The 
great  democracy  of  the  ancients  could  not  bear  the  strain  that  the  heredi- 
tary principle  placed  upon  it,  though  it  had  more  scholars  in  politics  than 
your  own  old  Bay  State,  and  the  harshest  critic  would  hesitate  to  classify 
some  of  its  leaders  as  tyros  in  statecraft  or  sophomores  in  the  arts  of 
representative  government." 


APPENDIX    E   (CHAPTER  XIV) 

ORIGIN  AND  NECESSITY  FOR  THE  FIFTEENTH  AMENDMENT. — ITS  CON- 
GRESSIONAL DISCUSSION  AND  HISTORY. — VIEWS  OF  DISTINGUISHED  STATES- 
MEN.— PRESENT-DAY  REVIVAL  OF  Post-Bellum  CONDITIONS. — PRESIDENT 
GRANT'S  OFFICIAL  ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THE  AMENDMENT  TO  THE  CONSTI- 
TUTION. 

"The  great  defect  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  as  freely  charged 
during  its  discussion,  was  its  at  least  tacit  recognition  of  the  right  of  States 
to  disfranchise  the  ex-slaves,  should  they  so  elect.  True,  they  could  not 
do  so  without  sacrificing  so  much  in  the  basis  of  their  representation  in 
Congress;  but  if  they  were  willing  to  make  that  sacrifice,  there  was  nothing 
in  the  Amendment  to  prevent  such  discrimination.  To  remedy  that 
defect,  so  palpable  and  so  dissonant  from  the  doctrine  of  human  rights, 
the  proclaimed  equality  of  mankind,  and  to  the  Amendments  already 
adopted,  and  at  the  same  time  to  rescue  the  freedman  from  the  almost 
uncontrolled  domination  of  the  late  slave-masters,  with  their  bitter  deter- 
mination to  keep  them  from  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  newly  found 
liberty,  and  to  put  into  their  hands  a  weapon  for  their  own  defence,  it 
was  resolved  to  incorporate  into  the  organic  law  a  new  provision  for  their 
protection,  and  to  supplement  the  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  already 
adopted  by  another.  There  were  accordingly  introduced  into  both  Houses, 
almost  simultaneously,  measures  for  that  purpose. 

"  It  should  be  premised,  and  it  may  be  properly  mentioned  in  this  connec- 
tion, that  from  the  first  the  thought  of  negro  suffrage  as  one  of  the  logical 
results  of  the  Rebellion  was  entertained.  Rid,  by  their  treason,  of  all 
Constitutional  claims  of  the  slave-masters,  hitherto  recognized  and  re- 
spected, many  at  once  coupled  the  looked-for  freedom  of  the  slaves  with 
the  gift  of  citizenship  and  the  rights  of  communities  and  perquisites  thereof. 
And  when  that  freedom  was  assured  there  were  not  wanting  those  who 
were  prepared  to  make  it  thus  effective  by  at  once  invoking  Congress  to 
adopt  measures  for  that  purpose.  .  .  .  . 

"No  sooner,  therefore,  had  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress  come  together 
at  its  first  session  than  Mr.  Wade  introduced,  on  the  4th  of  December, 
1865,  into  the  Senate  a  Bill  giving  each  male  person  of  the  age  of  twenty- 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  247 

one  years,  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  a  resident  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  six  months,  the  elective  franchise,  without  distinction  of  race, 
color  or  nationality.  A  similar  Bill  was  introduced  into  the  House  the  next 
day  by  Mr.  Kelley,  of  Pennsylvania,  referred,  reported  on  the  18th  and 
made  a  special  order  for  the  10th  of  January,  1866.  In  the  reported  bill 
the  word  '  white '  was  stricken  out  from  all  laws  prescribing  the  qualifica- 
tion of  voters.  The  mover  spoke  of  '  the  responsibility  that  rests  upon  this 
Congress,  and  of  the  gravity  of  the  questions  which  mark  the  era  in  which 
we  live.'  .  .  .  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Iowa,  who  reported  the  bill  in  the  House, 
spoke  of  it  as  in  exact  harmony  with  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  Consti- 
tution, which  recognized  no  class  distinctions.  'Looking  into  his  bright 
face,'  he  said,  'as  into  a  mirror,  each  individual  sees  himself  reflected  a 
citizen;  and  of  this  there  has  never  been  a  failure.  This  is  the  crowning 
glory  of  our  Constitution.  The  whitest  face  can  draw  nothing  from  that 
mirror  but  the  image  of  citizenship,  and  the  same  return  is  given  to  the 
appeal  of  the  black  face.  If  ever  aught  else  appears,  be  sure  you  are  not 
looking  into  the  broad,  bright  surface  of  the  real  Constitution,  for  it  never 
varies,  never  lies.'  Mr.  Farnsworth,  of  Illinois,  affirming  that  the  framera 
of  the  Constitution  made  it  for  'man  as  man,'  asked: 

" '  Will  some  gentleman,  in  God's  name,  tell  me  why  this  body  of  men  who 
are  under  the  government  have  not  the  same  right  as  I  have  to  participate 
in  it?  What  business  have  I  to  elbow  another  man  off,  and  to  say  to  him 
that  he  has  no  right  here?  Has  God  made  me  better  than  he  has  made 
him?  We  might  as  well  partition  off  the  atmosphere,  collect  the  rays  of 
the  sun  and  withhold  them  from  a  man  we  conceive  to  be  inferior  to  our- 
selves.' .  .  .  To  the  taunt  that  the  negro  had  not  struck  for  his  free- 
dom in  the  me!4e  of  the  war,  Mr.  Bingham,  of  Ohio,  well  replied,  adding: 

"Yet,  sir,  the  moment  that  the  word  'liberty'  ran  along  your  ranks, 
the  moment  that  the  word  'emancipation'  was  emblazoned  upon  your 
banners,  those  men  who,  with  their  ancestors,  had  been  enslaved  for  five 
generations,  rose  as  one  man  to  stand  by  this  republic,  the  last  hope  of 
oppressed  humanity  upon  the  earth,  until  they  numbered  175,000  in  arms 
under  your  banners,  doing  firmly,  unflinchingly  and  defiantly  their  full 
share  in  securing  the  final  victory  of  our  arms.  '  When,'  said  Mr.  Boutwell, 
'we  proclaimed  emancipation  to  the  slaves,  and  put  their  lives  in  peril 
for  the  defence  of  this  country,  we  did,  in  fact,  guarantee  to  them  sub- 
stantially the  rights  of  American  citizenship  and  a  Christian  posterity, 
and  heathen  countries  will  demand  how  we  have  kept  that  faith.  .  .  . 
What  will  be  said  of  us,  not  by  Christian,  but  by  heathen  nations  evrn, 
if,  after  accepting  the  blood  and  sacrifices  of  these  men,  we  hurl  them  from 
us  and  allow  them  to  be  the  victims  of  those  who  have  tyrannized  over 


248  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

them  for  centuries?  I  know  of  no  crime  that  exceeds  this;  I  know  of  none 
that  has  its  parallel;  and  if  this  country  is  true  to  itself  it  will  rise  in  its 
majesty  and  strength  and  maintain  a  policy,  here  and  everywhere,  by 
which  the  rights  of  the  colored  people  shall  be  secured  through  their  own 
power,  in  peace  the  ballot,  in  war  the  bayonet.' 

"The  measure  encountered  Democratic  opposition,  based  on  the  usual 
postulates  of  that  class  of  politicians — that  this  is  a  white  man's  govern- 
ment, that  the  negro  is  inferior,  that  slavery  is  his  natural  status,  and  that 
to  introduce  him  into  the  body  politic  on  terms  of  political  and  social 
equality  would  be  to  war  against  nature  and  inflict  great  injury  on  both. 
.  .  .  During  the  debate  in  the  House  there  had  been  proceeding  a  similar 
discussion  in  the  Senate,  introduced  by  Mr.  Henderson  and  reported  from 
the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  on  the  13th  of  January  for  the  amend- 
ment. The  resolution  was  in  these  words:  'No  State  shall  deny  or  abridge 
the  right  of  its  citizens  to  vote  and  hold  office  on  account  of  race,  color, 
or  previous  condition.'  .  .  .  Mr.  Stewart,  of  Nevada,  on  introducing 
the  discussion,  remarked  that  it  was  'the  culmination  of  a  contest  which 
has  lasted  for  thirty  years,  the  logical  result  of  the  Rebellion,  the  abolition 
of  slavery  and  of  the  conflicts  in  this  country  during  and  before  the  War.' 
Quoting  a  striking  sentence  from  the  Swiss  address  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  recently  published,  that  'undetermined  questions  have  no 
pity  for  the  repose  of  mankind,'  he  said,  'it  is  the  only  measure  that  will 
really  abolish  slavery,  the  only  guaranty  against  peon  laws  and  against 
oppression.'  Ordinary  legislation,  he  contended,  was  liable  to  change; 
this  should  be  organic.  'Let  it  be  made  an  immutable  law  of  the  land; 
let  it  be  fixed,  and  then  we  shall  have  peace.'  Saying  that  he  would  not 
occupy  time,  he  added: 

'"The  proposition  is  more  eloquent  than  man  can  be.  It  is  a  declara- 
tion too  high,  too  grand,  too  noble,  too  just,  to  be  ornamented  by  ora- 
tory. .  .  .' 

"In  opposing  the  amendment  Mr.  Sumner  expressed  his  sense  of  'sad- 
ness '  as  greater  in  being  compelled  to  vindicate  the  Constitution  from  the 
charge  of  sanctioning  that  spirit  of  caste  involved  in  excluding  any  from 
the  right  of  suffrage  on  account  of  color  and  race  under  the  pretence  of 
State  rights  than  had  been  the  task  of  vindicating  that  sacred  instrument 
from  the  charge  of  sanctioning  slavery.  'Others  may  be  cool  and  indiffer- 
ent,' he  said,  'but  I  have  warred  with  slavery  too  long  not  to  be  aroused 
when  the  old  enemy  shows  its  head  under  another  alias.  It  was  once 
slavery;  it  is  now  caste;  and  the  same  excuse  is  assigned  now  as  then.  No 
learning  in  books,  no  skill  acquired  in  courts,  no  sharpness  of  forensic 
dialectics,  no  cunning  in  splitting  hairs,  can  impair  the  vigor  of  the  Con- 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  249 

stitutional  principle  which  I  announce.  Whatever  you  enact  for  human 
rights  is  Constitutional.  There  can  be  no  State  rights  against  human 
right,  and  this  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  nothing  in  the  Constitution 
or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  .  .  .  The 
elective  franchise  once  recognized  can  never  be  denied ;  once  conferred  can 
never  be  resumed.  .  .  .  The  States  will  not  be  turned  into  political 
caldrons  and  the  Democratic  party  will  have  no  pudding-stick  with  which 
to  stir  the  bubbling  mass.'  And  he  closed  by  saying,  triumphantly: 

'"Party,  country,  mankind  will  be  elevated,  while  the  equal  rights  of 
all  will  be  fixed  on  a  foundation  not  less  enduring  than  the  Rock  of  Ages. ' 
In  all  this  Mr.  Sumner,  though  no  doubt  sincere,  was  unquestionably 
mistaken,  and  nothing  which  has  since  transpired  has  given  either  color 
or  support  to  such  sanguine  anticipations.  His  opposition  to  the  proposed 
amendment  and  his  refusal  to  vote  for  it  were  sources  of  great  regret  to 
his  friends  and  the  friends  of  the  freedmen,  which  nothing  in  the  conduct 
of  the  slave-holding  States  and  the  present  aspect  of  affairs  has  served 
to  modify  or  lessen. 

"He  was  followed  the  next  day  by  Mr.  Willey,  of  West  Virginia,  who 
contended  that  the  suffrage  was  '  the  only  sure  guaranty  the  negro  can 
have  in  many  sections  of  the  country  of  the  enjoy  nent  of  his  civil  rights  '; 
that  it  would  be  a  safer  shield  than  law ;  and  that  his  enfranchisement  was 
required  by  the  demands  of  justice,  by  the  principles  of  human  liberty, 
and  by  the  spirit  of  Christian  civilization.  .  .  . 

"Mr.  Wilson,  alluding  to  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Norton,  that  the  social 
ban  under  which  the  negro  rested  furnished  a  reason  against  his  enfranchise- 
ment, said: 

" '  It  outrages  humanity  and  dishonors  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The  poorer 
he  is,  the  greater  is  our  obligation;  the  more  society  averts  its  face  from 
him,  the  more  God  bids  us  stand  by,  shield  and  protect  him.'  Against 
the  aspersions  so  freely  uttered  against  the  negro,  he  spoke  of  the  character 
and  culture  of  many  whom  he  entered  high  on  his 'list  of  friends.  .  .  .' 

"The  Fifteenth  Amendment  received  the  votes  of  twenty-nine  States, 
constituting  the  requisite  three-fourths,  and  thus  became  part  of  the  organic 
law.  On  the  30th  of  March,  1870,  President  Grant  communicated  the  fact 
to  Congress  in  a  Special  Message.  'The  measure,'  he  said,  'which  makes 
at  once  four  millions  of  the  people  voters  who  were  heretofore  declared 
by  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  land  not  citizens  of  the  United  States  nor 
eligible  to  become  so,  with  the  assertion  that  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  fixed  and  universal  in  the  civilized  portion  of  the 
white  race,  and  regarded  as  an  axiom  in  morals  as  well  as  in  politics,  that 
black  men  had  no  rights  which  white  men  were  bound  to  respect,  is  indeed 


250  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

a  measure  of  grander  importance  than  any  other  from  the  founder  of  our 
free  government  to  the  present  time.  Institutions  like  ours,  in  which  all 
power  is  derived  directly  from  the  people,  must  depend  mainly  upon  their 
intelligence,  patriotism  and  industry.  I  call  the  attention,  therefore,  of 
the  newly  enfranchised  race  to  the  importance  of  their  striving  in  every 
honorable  manner  to  make  themselves  worthy  of  their  new  privilege.  To 
the  race  more  favored  heretofore  by  our  laws  I  would  say,  withhold  no 
legal  privilege  of  advancement  to  the  new  citizens.' 

"Into  these  few  unstudied  words  the  President  (Grant),  with  his  usually 
felicity  of  conception  and  purpose,  compressed  the  great  argument  of  the 
occasion.  .  .  ."* 

*  Henry  Wilson's  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power. 


APPENDIX    F   (CHAPTER  XII) 

AN  EPISODE  FOLLOWING  A  LYNCHING 

A  notorious  lynching  occurred  at  Chattanooga  of  a  colored  man  named 
Edward  Johnson  who  was  accused  of  a  capital  crime,  tried,  convicted  and 
sentenced  by  a  State  court.  His  counsel  had  sought  to  review  the  conviction 
upon  an  alleged  illegality.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had 
awarded  a  stay  of  proceedings.  That  fact  becoming  known  the  accused 
was  taken  from  the  jail  by  a  mob  and  put  to  death  in  a  most  barbarous 
way.  As  he  was  being  dragged  from  the  jail  one  of  the  guards  ia 
reported  to  have  halted  the  man's  captor  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a 
souvenir,  which  he  obtained  by  cutting  off  a  finger!  The  body  of  the 
accused  was  riddled  with  bullets  and  placarded  with  an  inscription  that 
was  in  terms  derogatory  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 

The  sheriff  and  his  deputies  were  cited  to  answer  at  a  date  named  before 
the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington,  on  a  charge  of  contempt.  On  the 
return  day  of  the  writ  the  respondents  appeared  in  court  and  by  counsel 
made  answer.  The  journey  of  the  party  from  Chattanooga  to  Washington, 
according  to  the  Chattanooga  papers,  was  a  gala  trip.  The  proceedings  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  on  filing  the  respondents'  answer  on  October  15,  1906, 
were  adjourned  for  several  weeks.  At  that  point  press  despatches  were 
put  upon  the  wire  at  Washington,  and  among  them  the  following  was 
published  in  the  New  York  World  : 

ROOSEVELT  HONORS  ACCUSED  SHERIFFS 

AFTER  THEIR  ARRAIGNMENT  FOR  CONTEMPT  HE  RECEIVES  THEM  AT  THE 
WHITE  HOUSE 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  15.* — Judson  Harmon  filed  in  the  Supreme  Court 
to-day  the  answer  of  Sheriff  Shipp,  of  Hamilton  County,  Tenn.,  and  nine 
deputies,  to  the  charge  of  contempt  in  connection  with  the  lynching  in 
Chattanooga  last  March  of  Ed.  Johnson,  a  negro,  after  the  Court  had 
granted  an  appeal  in  his  case. 


252  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Sheriff  Shipp  was  in  court,  and  when  his  presence  was  no  longer  necessary 
he  hastened  to  the  White  House,  accompanied  by  Judge  McReynolds,  who 
presided  at  the  trial  of  the  negro,  and  two  or  three  of  the  attorneys  in  the 
case,  to  arrange  a  reception  for  the  entire  party  from  Chattanooga. 

President  Roosevelt  was  having  a  conference  on  important  business,  but 
when  he  learned  that  Sheriff  Shipp  awaited  an  audience,  he  excused  himself, 
and  came  to  meet  him.  He  seized  the  Sheriff  by  both  hands  and  gave  him 
most  cordial  welcome.  He  said  it  would  greatly  please  him  to  receive  the 
party  to-morrow  morning.  When  told  that  they  desired  to  leave  the  city  to- 
night he  proceeded  to  give  an  informal  reception  right  then  and  there.  .  .  . 

In  court  to-day  all  the  respondents  denied  that  they  were  in  the  mob  that 
lynched  the  negro.  One  of  them  admitted  that  he  had  seen  the  lynching, 
one  of  them  said  that  he  was  not  in  the  county  and  another  averred  that 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  matter  until  the  next  day. 

Sheriff  Shipp  said  that  even  if  all  that  was  charged  by  the  Attorney- 
General  were  true,  the  court  had  no  jurisdiction.  He  denied  that  he  had 
received  notice  of  the  action  of  the  court,  or  that  he  had  read  the  papers 
announcing  that  the  court  had  issued  its  writ.  He  admitted  having  re- 
ceived a  telegram  notifying  him  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  taken  cogni- 
zance of  the  matter,  but  anyone  could  send  a  message  like  that.  He  denied 
the  sufficiency  of  a  telegram  as  notice  of  judicial  proceeding. 

There  having  been  a  general  denial  all  around  of  participation  in  the 
lynching,  it  is  incumbent  upon  the  Attorney-General  to  prove  that  they 
were  present.  This  can  be  done  either  in  open  court  or  by  commissioners. 


APPENDIX   G   (CHAPTER  XIV) 
A  CONCISE  HISTORY  OF  RECONSTRUCTION 

Speech  of  Hon.  Joseph  B.  Foraker  before  the  Chautauqua  Association 
at  Bellefontaine,  Ohio,  July  27,  1907. 


"Before  taking  up  anything  else  I  want  to  speak  briefly  in  answer  to 
some  utterances  of  Senator  Tillman.  He  has  been  making  a  speech  in 
Ohio.  It  was  on  the  'Race  Problem.'  This  is  his  favorite  topic.  He  is 
at  his  best  when  he  talks  on  that  subject,  but  his  best  is  also  his  worst. 

"He  is  one  of  the  frankest  and  one  of  the  ablest  men  the  South  has  ever 
produced.  Everyone  is  fond  of  him  as  a  man,  but  his  views  on  this  sub- 
ject are  so  extreme  that  but  few  of  his  Democratic  colleagues  in  the  Senate, 
if  any  of  them,  fully  agree  with  him. 

"In  his  latest  speech  he  is  quoted  as  saying: 

"'  '  If  after  the  war  the  North  had  not  in  its  passion  and  sectional  hatred  gone  far 
beyond  the  bounds  of  reason,  decency  and  righteousness,  there  would  to-day  be  no 
race  problem.  .  .  . 

"  'We  resent  and  resist  the  doctrine  of  equality  under  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments 

"  'You  have  done  wrong.  The  North  has  done  wrong.  It  can  remedy  the  feeling 
by  repealing  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  and  letting  the  States  control  the  franchise.' 

"All  the  way  through  his  discussion  is  in  the  nature  of  a  protest  against 
social  equality.  His  whole  argument  proceeds  upon  the  idea  that  the 
purpose  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution 
was  to  force  social  equality  upon  the  white  people  of  the  South  with  their 
negro  neighbors.  Nothing  could  be  more  wide  of  the  mark.  Nobody 
had  any  such  purpose.  Everybody  understood  then  as  now  that  social 
equality  cannot  be  forced  upon  anybody.  There  is  no  social  equality 
among  white  people,  except  as  they  may  choose  It  is  the  same  with 
black  people.  Even  more  true  it  is  as  between  black  and  white  people. 

"The  purpose  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  was  to 
provide  political  equality,  to  put  all  citizens  of  the  United  States,  whether 


254  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

white  or  black,  rich  or  poor,  upon  the  same  plane,  so  far  as  the  political 
rights  of  citizenship  were  concerned. 

"I  shall  not  stop  to  debate  with  Senator  Tillman  about  the  doctrine  of 
secession,  nor  as  to  whether  the  people  of  the  South  had  a  right  to  believe 
that  they  were  right  in  advocating  that  doctrine  and  in  plunging  the  nation 
into  war  to  uphold  it. 

"What  I  want  to  answer  is  his  charge  that  in  hatred  and  passion  the 
Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  were  forced 
upon  the  South,  and  that  in  this  way  the  North  heedlessly  precipitated 
upon  the  South  the  evils  they  suffered  during  the  Reconstruction  period. 
These  amendments,  if  not  fully  demanded  by  the  war  itself,  were  made 
necessary  by  the  situation  created  by  the  seceding  States  immediately 
after  the  war. 

"  Slavery  had  been  abolished.  The  doctrine  of  secession  was  dead.  Our 
contention  was,  therefore,  established  that  no  State  had  a  right  to  secede 
and  that  the  efforts  the  States  had  made  in  the  name  of  secession  were 
failures.  The  vindication  of  this  claim  brought  with  it,  however,  some 
troublesome  questions.  If  the  States  had  not 'been  out  of  the  Union  it 
was  not  necessary  to  do  anything  to  restore  them  to  the  Union.  Acting 
upon  this  idea  Andrew  Johnson  misled  the  seceding  States,  to  their  great 
injury  and  prejudice.  Under  his  direction  provisional  legislatures  were 
called  and  organized.  The  members  of  these  legislatures  were  naturally 
the  leading  men  in  each  State,  and  all  these,  as  a  rule,  had  been  in  the 
Confederate  army;  and  whether  they  had  been  in  the  army  or  not,  they 
had  all  sympathized  with  the  Confederate  cause.  They  proceeded  upon 
the  theory  that  they  were  in  the  Union,  and,  being  in  the  Union,  had  a 
right  to  send  Senators  and  Members  of  Congress  to  represent  them  at 
Washington.  Accordingly,  within  a  few  months  after  the  close  of  actual 
hostilities  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  the  late  Vice-President  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  appeared  at  Washington,  commissioned  by  the  provisional 
legislature  of  Georgia  to  represent  that  State  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  If  he  should  be  seated  a  precedent  would  thereby  be  established 
under  which  Members  of  the  House  and  Senators  from  all  the  seceding 
States  would  resume  their  places  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  with 
power  to  legislate  for  the  whole  country,  and  with  power  in  combination 
with  those  who  had  sympathized  with  them  from  the  North,  to  prevent 
any  legislation  that  would  give  any  guarantee  against  a  resumption  of 
hostilities  if  that  should  ever  be  possible,  or  against  such  proceedings  as 
would  enable  them  to  nullify  by  the  ballot  all  we  had  gained  by  the  bullet. 

"It  was  a  serious  situation.  There  were  many  troublesome  questions 
to  deal  with.  One  was  as  to  the  inviolability  of  the  debt  contracted  to 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  255 

preserve  the  Union.  Another  was  as  to  the  repudiation  of  the  debt  con- 
tracted by  the  Southern  Confederacy  to  destroy  the  Union.  Another  was 
as  to  the  sacredness  of  pensions  for  Union  soldiers.  Another  was  as  to  a 
definition  of  citizenship  of  the  United  States.  Another  was  as  to  the 
basis  of  representation  in  the  Congress  and  Electoral  College.  Another 
was  as  to  the  proper  protection  of  the  slaves  who  had  been  freed,  and  as 
to  the  claims  on  account  of  their  emancipation. 

"These  were  questions  of  vital  character.  A  number  of  them  could  not 
be  dealt  with  by  mere  statutory  provisions.  A  change  in  the  organic  law 
was  absolutely  essential.  After  much  consideration,  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  was  proposed.  This  was  a  very  comprehensive  document. 
It  embodied  the  settlement  of  all  these  questions.  No  complaint  of  un- 
fairness has  ever  been  made  as  to  the  settlement  it  made  of  any  of  these 
questions,  except  that  as  to  suffrage;  and  there  was  no  just  ground  for 
any  complaint  as  to  that.  Under  all  the  circumstances  it  was  most 
generous.  This  provision  was,  having  direct  reference  to  the  peculiar 
conditions  in  the  South,  that  each  State  should  settle  for  itself  who  should 
exercise  the  right  of  suffrage.  If  a  State  did  not  wish  to  give  its  negro 
population  a  right  to  vote  it  was  not  required  to  do  so.  The  only  disad- 
vantage to  which  such  State  was  subject,  if  it  denied  negroes  the  right 
to  vote,  was  that  it  should  suffer  a  corresponding  reduction  in  the  basis 
of  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the  Electoral  College.  Under  the 
Constitution,  prior  to  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  in  determining  the  basis 
of  representation,  five  slaves  were  counted  as  three.  This  was  called  the 
three-fifths  rule.  When  slavery  was  abolished  and  all  were  free,  each 
man  counted  as  one.  The  result  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was, 
therefore,  to  increase  the  representation  of  the  seceding  States,  so  that 
these  States  that  had  been  in  rebellion,  by  reason  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  had  greater  political  power  when  restored  to  their  place  in  the 
Union  after  their  attempt  to  overthrow  the  government  than  they  had 
prior  thereto.  This  we  did  not  object  to,  provided  they  allowed  the 
colored  men,  who  composed  so  large  a  part  of  that  basis  of  representation, 
the  right  of  suffrage;  but  we  did  object  to  it  if  that  right  of  suffrage  should 
not  be  allowed  to  the  colored  man,  for  it  did  not  seem  right  then,  and, 
looking  back  now  through  forty  years  of  peace  to  that  troublesome  period, 
it  does  not  seem  right  now,  that  the  white  men  of  the  seceding  States  should 
have  full  representation  for  themselves  and  an  additional  representation 
equally  as  large  for  their  colored  population,  and  that  they  alone  should 
do  all  the  voting.  Especially  did  f-his  not  seem  right  to  men  who  had  just 
gone  through  the  struggles  of  a  great  war,  when  it  was  remembered  that 
this  double  power  of  voting  was  to  be  given  to  the  men  who  had  waged 


256  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

that  war  and  be  wholly  denied  to  the  black  men,  who,  although  in  a  large 
sense  unprepared  for  an  intelligent  exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage,  were 
yet  nevertheless  known  to  be  absolutely  loyal  to  the  Union  and  the  great 
purposes  of  the  men  who  had  saved  it.  This  Fourteenth  Amendment 
was,  therefore,  not  only  necessary,  but  it  was  just  and  generous.*  The 
Southern  States  should  have  gladly  and  gratefully  accepted  it,  but  instead 
of  accepting  it  every  one  of  them  promptly,  and  in  what  appeared  to  be 
an  offensive  spirit  and  manner,  rejected  it.  Under  the  leadership  and 
inspiration  of  President  Johnson,  they  proposed  to  force  their  way  back 
into  their  places  in  the  government  without  any  terms  or  conditions 
whatever,  except  such  as  President  Johnson  and  they  themselves  might 
impose.  To  this  programme  the  loyal  men  who  had  saved  the  Union  would 
not  consent.  They  had  no  right  to  consent.  They  were  anxious  to  do 
everything  reasonable  to  bring  the  seceding  States  back  into  the  Union 
and  make  them  feel  at  home  and  happy  there,  but  they  were  not  willing 
to  jeopardize  all  that  had  been  gained,  through  mere  sentimentalism. 
Therefore  it  was  that  the  policies  of  Andrew  Johnson  were  rejected  and 
Reconstruction  legislation  followed,  dividing  the  South  into  military  dis- 
tricts and  providing  for  State  governments  and  State  legislatures  to  be 
chosen  by  those  who  had  been  loyal,  to  which  there  should  be  a  re-sub- 
mission of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  This  programme  undoubtedly  did 
involve  much  that  was  disappointing  and  exasperating  and  humiliating 
to  the  majority  of  the  people  of  the  South,  but  they,  and  they  alone,  made 
either  that  programme  or  something  similar  to  it  a  necessity,  unless  we  were 
to  fritter  away  the  fruits  of  the  war  and  allow  them  practically  unchal- 
lenged, as  well  as  unpunished,  to  resume  their  places  in  the  government. 
"If  they  had  accepted  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  there  would  not 
have  been  any  Fifteenth  Amendment,  for  with  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
accepted  and  all  the  seceding  States  restored  to  their  places  in  the  govern- 
ment, the  ratification  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  by  the  requisite  number 
of  States  would  have  been  an  impossibility.  If,  therefore,  there  be  any 

*  Judge  Alton  B.  Parker,  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  1904,  told  the 
Georgia  State  Bar  Association  in  1905  that  if  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  were  "not 
now  a  part  of  the  Constitution  it  is  not  probable  that  it  could  be  incorporated  into  that  instru- 
ment." 

Now  that  Amendment  gives  the  power  and  authority  of  the  United  States  as  our 
palladium  of  protection  for  individual  "life,  liberty  or  property"  within  all  the  States. 

If  the  speaker's  assertion  be  correct  (which  it  is  not),  then  indeed  in  the  forty-odd 
years  since  the  War  Amendments  were  adopted  has  this  mighty  nation  woefully  fallen 
from  the  standards  of  right  and  justice  sagaciously  established  by  the  statesmen  of  the 
Civil  War  period.  The  speaker's  remark  indicates  a  partisan  willingness  to  humor  a 
locality  by  lowering  those  standards. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  257 

fault  to  find  with  anybody  on  account  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  it 
rests  with  these  seceding  States,  for  they,  by  their  refusal  to  accept  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  not  only  compelled  Reconstruction,  but  pre- 
cipitated a  submission  and  ratification  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment. 

"They  accentuated  all  this  by  their  treatment  of  the  freedmen.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  unfriendly  character  of  the  legislation 
affecting  them  that  was  enacted  immediately  after  the  war  in  most  of  the 
seceding  States. 

"Loitering statutes  were  common.  They  provided  heavy  fines  of  $50  to  $100  to  be 
imposed  upon  any  one  who  was  found  loitering  without  work.  The  freedman.  who 
had  just  been  emancipated,  had  neither  work  nor  money.  No  matter  how  zealously 
he  might  seek  employment,  he  was  helpless  if  employment  should  be  refused  him. 
Under  these  statutes  if  found  idle  he  was  a  loiterer,  and  if  he  had  no  money,  as  he  did 
not  have,  with  which  to  pay  his  fine,  he  was  hired  to  the  highest  bidder,  thus  becoming 
bound  to  labor  for  those  who  had  no  interest  whatever  in  either  his  health  or  his  life 
beyond  the  term  for  which  he  was  hired.  This  brought  about  a  condition  of  things 
worse  than  slavery.  By  another  bill  it  was  provided  that  every  adult  freedman  should 
provide  himself  with  a  comfortable  home  and  visible  means  of  support  within  twenty 
days  after  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  failing  to  do  so  should  be  hired  at  public  outcry 
to  the  highest  bidder  for  the  period  of  one  year.  By  another  law  it  was  provided  that 
all  agricultural  laborers  should  be  compelled  to  make  contracts  for  labor  during  the 
first  ten  days  of  January  for  the  entire  year.  All  failing  to  do  so  were  liable  to  heavy 
fines  and  severe  penalties.  Scores  of  like  statutes,  some  of  them  worse,  even,  than 
these,  were  enacted.* 

"It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  spirit  of  this  legislation  was  not 
justice,  but  inj  ustice,  and  that  of  the  most  malicious  and  revengeful  char- 
acter. This  kind  of  legislation,  coupled  with  refusal  to  accept  what  were 
thought  to  be  the  generous  terms  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  naturally 
created  a  public  sentiment  in  the  North  that  secured  the  ratification  of 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  led  to  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  by  which 
it  was  provided  that  no  State  should  have  the  right  to  deny  or  abridge 
the  right  to  vote  on  account  of  race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 
But  it  was  not  passion,  neither  was  it  hatred,  that  brought  about  these 
results,  but  only  a  solemn  sense  of  duty.  There  was  never  a  time,  except 
only  when  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  adopted,  that  it  could  have  been 
adopted,  and  there  has  never  been  a  time  since  it  was  adopted  when  it 
could  have  been  repealed,  and  in  my  opinion  there  never  will  be  a  time 
when  it  can  be  repealed,  simply  because  it  was  right  then  and  is  right  now. 
It  was  a  great  forward  step  in  the  recognition  by  government  of  the  right 
of  citizens  governed  to  participate  in  their  government  and  to  have  equal 
protection  under  it  If  in  some  places  it  has  failed  to  bring  good  results, 

*  See  Chapter  XIV. 


258  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

that  fact  is  due  more  to  the  bad  faith  that  has  been  practised  to  defeat 
its  purpose  than  to  any  inherent  trouble. 

"Except  only  to  state  these  facts  of  history  I  have  no  desire  to  pursue 
this  subject  further  at  this  time,  but  I  cannot  help  remarking  that  'God 
moves  in  a  mysterious  way  his  wonders  to  perform.'  Out  of  the  vanity 
and  folly  of  Andrew  Johnson  and  the  obduracy  and  unreasonable  conduct 
of  the  seceding  States  came  the  conditions  that  prevented  the  American 
people  from  stopping  short  in  the  great  work  of  establishing  the  doctrine 
of  human  equality  before  the  law  for  all  men.  That  was  not  the  work 
of  the  Republican  party  or  the  people  of  the  North,  but  of  the  ever-living 
God.  The  noble  men  who  were  the  actors  were  but  His  instruments  to 
register  His  decrees.  No  one  seems  to  know  what  will  be  the  solution 
of  the  race  problem,  but  it  may  be  said  confidently  that  it  will  not  be  found 
in  trying  to  undo  any  of  these  works  of  the  Almighty,  for  they  shall  endure 
forever." 


APPENDIX  H   (CHAPTER  XIV) 

HISTORICAL  AND  LEGAL  ERRORS,  SUPPRESSIONS  AND  .DISTORTIONS. — 
ONE  OF  MANY  INSTANCES. — AN  ACADEMIC  ADDRESS  BY  DR.  J.  M.  DICKIN- 
SON REVIEWED  AND  CRITICISED. — FOUR  STATEMENTS  ANALYZED  AND 
LESSONS  DRAWN  THEREFROM. 

Speaking  at  the  Alumni  luncheon  during  the  Commencement  exercises 
at  Columbia  University  in  June,  1905,  the  following  are  some  of  the  remarks 
that  were  made  by  Dr.  Jacob  McGavock  Dickinson,  of  Chicago,  to  whom 
had  just  been  awarded  the  degree  of  LL.D.  The  speaker  was  introduced 
as  one  who  had  had  judicial  experience  on  the  bench  in  Tennessee,  and 
one  of  the  representatives  of  the  United  States  appearing  in  the  Behring 
Sea  arbitration.  In  alluding  to  the  conditions  of  the  country  when  he 
first  entered  upon  the  study  of  law  in  1872,  he  said: 

"The  aftermath  of  war,  with  its  blight,  distracted  our  country.  The 
Reconstruction  Act  of  1867,  and  the  act  of  1870,  which  put  Southern 
States  under  the  superintendence  and  virtual  control  of  Federal  supervisors 
and  marshals,  were  in  full  fruitage.  Steps  taken  to  crush  the  Ku-Klux- 
Klan,  under  the  act  of  1871,  which  authorized  the  President  to  suspend 
at  his  pleasure  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  'during  the  continuance  of  such 
rebellion  against  the  United  States/  were  continually  arousing  the  passions 
of  the  people  all  over  the  land.  The  policy  of  '  Thorough '  inaugurated  by 
Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  had  stirred  an  intensity  of  feeling  beside  which 
that  of  the  actual  conflict  of  arms  was  like  the  calm  of  a  summer  day 
contrasted  with  a  furious  cyclone.  The  award  under  the  treaty  of  Wash- 
ington had  just  been  made,  and  while  it  afforded  satisfaction  to  our  people, 
it  revived  the  bitter  memories  of  the  greyhound  of  the  sea  that  swept 
away  so  much  of  American  commerce.  The  whites  of  the  South  were 
largely  disfranchised.  The  liberal  Republicans  had  nominated  Greeley  and 
Brown  upon  a  platform  which  demanded  'immediate  and  absolute  removal 
of  all  disabilities  imposed  on  account  of  the  rebellion,'  and  the  Democrats 
had  accepted  the  nominees.  All  of  these  acute  questions  were  vigorously 
and  bitterly  discussed  from  one  end  of  the  Republic  to  the  other.  It 
was  under  such  auspices  that,  attracted  by  the  great  reputation  of  that 
peerless  law  teacher,  Theodore  W.  Dwight,  we  came  to  the  North  seeking 


260  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  best  instruction  that  could  be  got  in  the  law,  and  besought  Columbia 
to  be  our  Alma  Mater.  The  future  seemed  then  to  be  hopeless.  Whether 
we  could  ever  have  a  country  that  we  could  love,  and  die  for,  if  necessary, 
we  did  not  know. 

"I  would  not  recall  these  recollections  if  my  mind  and  heart  could  not 
turn  gladly  to  the  obverse  picture.  The  sound  sense  and  patriotism  of 
the  great  people,  subdued  the  strong  passions  engendered  by  strife,  and 
repressed  those  stern  enthusiasts  who  would  have  destroyed  every  vestige 
of  the  old  civilization  of  the  Southern  States.  We  have  lived  to  see.  .  .  .  "* 

While  this  exordium  of  an  obviously  carefully  prepared  address  assumed 
a  conservative  and  judicial  tone,  and  naturally  passed  unchallenged  on 
such  an  occasion,  it  nevertheless,  while  claiming  to  portray  national  con- 
ditions as  they  were  in  1872,  conveys  an  imperfect  picture  of  the  actual 
state  of  things  then  existing.  From  a  professional  man  the  historical 
references  to  laws  and  conditions  are  not  instructive.  They  are  not 
impartial  or  comprehensive.  This  will  be  obvious  when  the  following  par- 
ticular statements  are  considered: 

a.  "  The  Reconstruction  Act  of  1867  and  the  act  of  1870    .     .     .     put 
Southern  States  under  the  superintendence  and  virtual  control  of  Fed- 
eral supervisors  and  marshals." 

b.  "Steps  taken  to  crush  the  Ku-Klux-Klan  under  the  act  of  1871, 
which  authorized  the  President  to  suspend  at  his  pleasure  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  'during  the  continuance  of  such  rebellion  against  the  United 
States,'  were  continually  arousing  the  passions  of  the  people  all  over  the 
land." 

c.  "The  policy  of  'Thorough    inaugurated  by  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens 
had  stirred  an  intensity  of  feeling  beside  which  that  of  the  actual  conflict 
of  arms  was  like  the  calm  of  a  summer  day  contrasted  with  a  furious 
cyclone." 

d.  "The  whites  of  the  South  were  largely  disfranchised." 

a.  The  statement  that  the  act  of  1870  (meaning  probably  the  act  of 
May  31, 1870, 16  Statutes  140)  "puts  Southern  States  under  the  superin- 
tendence and  virtual  control  of  Federal  supervisors  and  marshals,"  is 
certainly  not  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  history. 

The  purpose  of  that  act  was  to  secure  honest  elections,  as  well  in  the 
South  as  in  the  City  of  New  York,  where,  through  the  power  and  machinations 
of  the  Tweed  "ring,"  the  voice  of  the  people  at  elections  had  been  thwarted 

*  This  speech  is  reported  in  the  Columbia  University  Quarterly  for  September,  1905, 
Vol  VII,  No.  4.  p.  439. 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  261 

by  stupendous  election  frauds.  These  frauds  had  long  been  suspected, 
but  were  not  effectually  disclosed  to  public  gaze  until  the  Federal  Census 
of  1870  revealed,  for  instance,  that  in  one  district  of  the  Sixth  Ward  in 
New  York  City  more  votes  had  been  returned  than  there  were  men,  women, 
children,  cats  and  dogs  in  the  district!  Election  plots  like  these  had  de- 
feated a  Republican  candidate  for  Governor  and  seated  a  representative 
of  the  "ring"  in  the  gubernatorial  chair  at  Albany. 

The  act  of  1870,  to  which  the  speaker  referred,  was  first  put  in  operation 
in  the  city  of  New  York  immediately  after  and  in  the  light  of  that  census, 
where  Federal  troops  were  sagaciously  stationed  during  the  election,  in 
view  of  the  threat  of  the  State  authorities  that  the  law  should  not  be 
enforced.  The  law  was  also  assailed  in  the  courts;  but  the  result  was  an 
indictment  and  a  prompt  trial  and  conviction  before  the  autumn  election 
(case  of  U.  S.  v.  Quinn,  8  Blatchford,  p.  48),  the  law  and  the  conviction 
under  it  being  upheld  by  one  of  the  greatest  jurists  of  the  time  (Hon.  Lewis 
B.  Woodruff).  Of  course,  like  all  new  laws  when  put  into  operation, 
experience  showed  the  necessity  for  improvement,  and  it  was  improved 
by  amendments  enacted  February  28,  1871,  mentioned  by  the  speaker. 

The  Southern  States  were  no  more  "under  the  superintendence  and  virtual 
control  of  Federal  supervisors  and  marshals"  than  was  the  city  of  New  York, 
which  for  more  than  a  score  of  years  lived  under  that  law  with  most 
beneficent  results  in  purging  elections.  The  statement  that  the  Southern 
States  were  under  such  control  can  only  be  harmonized  with  truth  on  the 
theory  that  there  had  been  no  honest  elections  there,  or  would  not  have 
been  except  for  the  presence  of  "Federal  supervisors  and  marshals." 
Without  pausing  to  describe  elections  at  that  period,  it  is  enough  to  say 
that  the  speaker's  statement  in  this  respect  is  not  an  accurate  or  faith- 
ful picture  of  conditions  legal  or  actual — traditions  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 

6.  The  next  statement  that  is  not  instructive  to  a  modern  student  of 
history  is  that  the  steps  that  were  taken  to  crush  the  Ku-Klux-Klan 
.  .  .  were  continually  arousing  the  passions  of  the  people  all  over  the 
land. 

The  implication  is  that  under  the  act  passed  for  the  suppression  of  those 
unholy  and  brutal  bodies  bearing  that  name,  the  law  itself  was  arousing  pas- 
sions, because  in  certain  contingencies  it  authorized  the  suspension  of  habeas 
corpus.  One  might  infer,  indeed,  from  the  speaker's  manner  of  putting  it, 
that  those  associations  might  have  been  a  species  of  benevolent  philan- 
thropists, instead,  as  they  really  were,  of  disguised  incendiaries  and  assassins, 


262  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

terrorizing  a  county;  that  the  "steps"  taken  to  crush — and  which  happily 
did  crush — them  were  per  se  ignoble  and  wicked;  and  that  the  suspension 
of  habeas  corpus  under  the  enactment  referred  to  was  permanent  and  not 
temporary.  Reference,  however,  to  the  language  of  the  statute  of  April 
20,  1871,  which  is  the  law  referred  to,  will  make  it  clear  to  the  student 
from  original  sources  that  the  Presidential  power  in  the  suspension  of 
habeas  corpus  was  only  when  unlawful  combinations  to  obstruct  the  laws 
became  "organized  and  armed  and  so  numerous  and  powerful  as  to  be  able 
by  violence  to  either  overthrow  or  set  at  defiance  the  constituted  authority 
of  such  State  and  of  the  United  States  within  such  State,  or  when  the  con- 
stituted authorities  are  in  complicity  with  it,  or  shall  connive  at  the  un- 
lawful purposes  of  such  powerful  and  armed  combinations,"  or  when  the 
conviction  of  offenders  and  the  preservation  of  the  public  safety  should  be 
locally  impossible.  Then  and  to  that  extent  such  combinations  were  to 
be  deemed  rebellion,  during  the  continuance  of  which  and  within  designated 
limits  to  be  prescribed  by  proclamation  it  should  be  lawful  to  suspend 
"the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  .  .  .  that  such  rebellion  may  be  over- 
thrown." These  provisions  of  the  statute  it  was  expressly  declared  should 
"not  be  enforced  after  the  end  of  the  next  regular  session  of  Congress." 
It  was  obviously  a  temporary  expedient  to  deal  with  a  temporary  emer- 
gency, leaving  the  future  for  further  Congressional  action. 

When  these  laws  are  examined  and  the  historical  conditions  they  relate 
to  are  borne  in  mind,  no  impartial  judge  can  properly  conclude  that  the 
speaker's  words  in  this  respect  present  a  faithful  picture.  Omissions 
and  part-statements  often  mar  a  faithful  presentation  of  facts. 

c.  Again,  the  speaker  stated  that  the  policy  of  "Thorough"  inaugurated 
by  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  had  "stirred  an  intensity  of  feeling  beside  which 
that  of  the  actual  conflict  of  arms  was  like  the  calm  of  a  summer  day  con- 
trasted with  a  furious  cyclone."  The  imagery  may  be  beautiful,  but 
what  of  its  correctness  ? 

One  would  suppose  from  the  statement  that  the  sagacious  statesman 
named  had  impressed  upon  his  party  and  the  country  at  large  the  policies 
he  eloquently  advocated.  Unfortunately  he  did  not.  If  he  had,  much 
national  woe  might  have  been  saved.  If  the  speaker  will  consult — as  he 
evidently  had  not  done  when  he  spoke — the  Congressional  debates  in  which 
Mr.  Stevens  participated,  and  the  compromises  indicated  in  the  Congres- 
sional Committee  reports  in  accordance  with  which  the  party  finally  acted  and 
Reconstruction  measures  were  adopted,  he  would  discover  that  Mr.  Stevens' 
advice  was  not  followed;  and  that  the  policies  described  as  "Thorough," 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  263 

for  which  Mr.  Stevens  stood,  were  unfortunately  not  adopted  by  his  party, 
the  Republicans.  In  this  connection  it  is  noteworthy  that  Mr.  Stevens 
is  recorded  on  the  final  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives  as  having 
voted  against  both  the  acts  of  February  28,  1871,  and  April  20,  1871, 
referred  to  by  the  speaker.  It  may  not  be  an  uninstructive  study  for 
publicists,  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  the  last  forty  years,  to  speculate 
how  much  wiser  it  might  have  been  if  the  policies  of  Mr.  Stevens  had  in 
fact  been  incorporated  into  statutes  at  the  period  referred  to. 

The  speaker's  allusion  to  the  career  of  the  "Alabama"  as  the  "greyhound 
of  the  sea  that  swept  away  so  much  of  American  commerce,"  seemed  to 
a  casual  listener  to  be  in  the  nature  of  an  unjustifiable  tribute  to  a  cruiser 
for  which,  on  account  of  its  career,  practically  as  a  pirate,  a  friendly  nation 
had  to  pay  damages  to  this  country!  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  speaker 
did  not  intend  such  tribute;  yet  that  was  the  impression  made  upon  the 
minds  of  some  of  his  hearers. 

d.  The  speaker  further  stated,  referring  to  1872,  that  in  the  South  "the 
whites  were  largely  disfranchised,"  and  that  one  political  party  had  adopted 
a  platform  demanding  "immediate  and  absolute  removal  of  all  disabilities 
imposed  on  account  of  the  rebellion,"  and  he  implied  a  bitter  opposition 
thereto  from  the  other  political  party. 

This  statement  of  the  political  features  of  that  time  is  so  incomprehensive 
as  to  be  misleading.  The  whites  of  the  South  were  not "  largely  disfranchised. " 
Political  disabilities  were  limited  to  specified  classes.  Even  among  those  who 
had  been  politically  disabled  pardons  had  been  numerous  and  freely  awarded. 
Moreover,  Congress  had  passed  a  bill,  approved  May  22,  1872,  removing 
disabilities  "from  all  persons  whatsoever  except  senators  and  representa- 
tives of  the  Thirty-sixth  and  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  officers  in  the 
judicial,  military  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  heads  of  depart- 
ments and  foreign  ministers  of  the  United  States."  The  inference  from 
the  speaker's  statement  leaves  out  the  fact  that  the  same  political  com- 
bination that  was  at  that  time  clamoring  for  a  so-called  amnesty  bill  was 
opposing,  and  finally  defeated,  measures  aimed  to  secure  to  the  colored 
people  "Civil  Rights"  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution. 

On  May  15, 1872,  at  a  convention  of  the  Republicans  of  the  State  of  New 
York  there  was  adopted  a  platform  plank  aptly  descriptive  of  the  actual 
conditions.  It  read: 

"That  the  cry  about  universal  amnesty  is  calculated  to  deceive  the 
people  by  concealment  of  the  fact  that  those  lately  in  rebellion  are  excluded 
by  no  Federal  law  from  the  same  right  to  vote  and  to  hold  property  which 


264  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  most  loyal  citizens  enjoy;  and  intelligent  people  will  remark  that  so 
unwilling  were  Liberal  Republicans  to  grant  common  justice  to  the  f reed- 
men  of  the  South,  that  recently,  by  their  own  votes  in  the  Senate,  they 
combined  with  Democrats,  who  alone  were  not  sufficient,  and  sacrificed 
the  amnesty  law  which  had  passed  the  House,  rather  than  give  to  the 
colored  people  the  common  civil  rights  secured  by  Mr.  Sumner's  bill,  to 
which  the  Senator  so  consistently  and  honorably  adhered." 

In  paying  tribute  to  "the  great  reputation  of  that  peerless  law  teacher, 
Theodore  W.  Dwight,"  when  the  speaker  said  that  it  was  under  such 
auspices  that  he  came  to  the  North  seeking  the  best  instruction  that  could 
be  got  in  the  law,  and  that  the  conditions  were  such  as  he  describes,  it  is 
a  mild  way  of  putting  it  to  say  that  the  speaker's  description  is  uninstruc- 
tive  and  unhistorical,  if  not,  as  some  of  his  hearers  deemed,  deserving  of 
more  emphatic  characterization.  An  imperfect  statement  of  truth, 
or  its  substantial  suppression  actually  or  inferentially,  is  justifiable 
neither  in  a  teacher  of  history  nor  in  a  jurist  instructing  a  lay  audience 
in  law. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  there  should  have  been  inadvertent  allusions 
of  an  historical  character  at  a  prominent  academic  function,  and  all  the 
more  so  because  it  might  appear  in  this  instance  as  if  those  statements 
bore  the  imprimatur  of  Columbia  University  on  account  of  the  LL.D. 
degree  just  then  conferred  upon  the  speaker. 


APPENDIX  I   (CHAPTERS  XII,  XIV) 

A  CONTRACT  LAW  AND  A  VAGRANCY  LAW. — STATUTES  CITED  IN  THE 
TEXT  AT  CHAPTERS  XII,  p.  156;  XIV,  p.  185. 

A  provision  of  the  Alabama  Contract  Law  is  as  follows: 

"Sect.  1. — Any  person  who  has  contracted  in  writing  to  labor  for  or 
serve  another  for  any  given  time,  or  any  person  who  has  by  written  con- 
tract leased  or  rented  land  from  another  for  any  specified  time,  or  any 
person  who  has  contracted  in  writing  with  a  party  furnishing  the  lands, 
or  the  lands  and  teams  to  cultivate  it,  either  to  furnish  the  labor  and  the 
labor  and  teams,  with  stipulations,  express  or  implied,  to  divide  the  crops 
between  them  in  certain  proportion,  and  who  before  the  expiration  of 
such  contract  and  without  the  consent  of  the  other  party,  and  without 
sufficient  excuse  to  be  adjudged  by  the  court,  shall  leave  such  other 
party  or  abandon  said  contract,  or  leave  or  abandon  the  leased  premises, 
or  the  land  furnished  as  aforesaid,  and  who  shall  also  make  a  second 
contract,  shall  be  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  and  on  conviction  fined  not 
exceeding  fifty  dollars  or  sentenced  to  hard  labor  not  exceeding  six  months, 
one  or  both  at  discretion  of  court,  and  if  not  tried  by  a  jury,  or  discretion 
of  jury  trying  same.  And  when  such  contract  is  made  by  two  or  more 
such  persons  the  same  shall  be  considered  and  held  a  several  as  well  as  a 
joint  contract  on  their  part.  Provided  the  provisions  of  this  act  do  not 
apply  to  Blount,  Cullman's,  Winston,  Jackson,  Marshall,  Calhoun,  Lee, 
Lawrence,  Dekalb,  Morgan,  Coosa,  Jefferson,  Mobile,  Etowah,  Baldwin, 
Butler,  Escambia,  Perry,  Conecuh,  Covington,  Colbert,  Franklin,  Cherokee, 
Fayette,  and  Washington  Cos."* 

The  Alabama  Vagrancy  Law  passed  in  1903  is  as  follows : 
"  Any  person  wandering  or  strolling  about  in  idleness,  who  is  able  to 
work  and  has  no  property  to  support  him;  or  any  person  leading  an 
idle,  immoral  and  known  profligate  life,  who  is  able  to  work  and  does 
not  work,  who  has  no  money  to  support  him,  or  has  no  visible  means 
of  a  fair,  honest  and  reputable  livelihood  (construed  to  mean  reason- 

*  Alabama,  Contract  Law,  1900-1,  No.  483  act,  S.  24. 


266  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

able  continuous  employment  at  some  lawful  occupation  for  reasonable 
compensation,  or  a  fixed  and  regular  income  from  property  or  other 
investment,  which  income  is  sufficient  for  support  and  maintenance  of 
such  vagrant),  or  any  person  having  a  fixed  abode  who  lives  by  stealing 
trading  or  bartering  stolen  property,  or  a  drunkard  or  professional  gambler 
living  in  idleness ;  or  able-bodied  beggar,  or  one  who  leaves  wife  and  chil- 
dren, or  any  person  who  does  not  work  but  hires  out  his  minor  children  and 
lives  upon  their  wages;  or  any  person  between  sixteen  and  twenty-one 
not  supported  by  parent  or  not  at  educational  institute,  or  prostitute  or 
keeper  of  house  of  prostitution,  shall  on  conviction  be  fined  not  more  than 
$500  or  may  be  sentenced  to  the  county  jail  for  not  more  than  6  months'  hard 
labor.  Provided  that  it  shall  be  sufficient  defence  to  charge  of  vagrancy 
that  defendant  has  made  bona  fide  efforts  to  obtain  employment  at  reason- 
able prices  for  his  labor  and  has  failed  to  obtain  the  same. 

"The  provisions  of  this  Act  shall  not  apply  to  persons  idle  through  strikes 
and  lockouts." 

(This  is  much  more  severe  than  the  Vagrancy  Act  of  1896  which  gave 
a  fine  of  from  10  to  50  dollars  for  a  first  offence.) 


APPENDIX  K   (CHAPTER  XVI) 

EXPLANATIONS,  HISTORICAL  AND  LEGAL,  RELATING  TO  THE  ''CAPTURED 
AND  ABANDONED  PROPERTY  ACT"  OF  CONGRESS.— COTEMPORANEOUS 
CONDITIONS  STATED. — THE  BENEVOLENT  LIBERALITY  OF  THE  ACT  ITSELF. 
— ITS  PROPOSED  REVIVAL  UNJUST. 

Early  in  18G2  the  Confederate  Congress  passed  a  statute  establishing 
agencies  at  all  prominent  centres  to  obtain  farm  and  plantation  produce 
in  exchange  for  Confederate  bonds  and  currency,  and  there  are  now  in 
the  files  of  our  Treasury  Department  a  great  number  of  bills  of  sale  to  the 
Confederacy  (known  as  Produce  Certificates)  for  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  bales  of  cotton,  for  which  the  vendors  thereof  became  the  bailees 
of  the  cotton  sold  by  themselves.  Of  course,  most  of  these  bills  of  sale  here 
were  destroyed  at  the  time  of  the  "surrender,"  and  that  loss  of  Confed- 
erate records  no  doubt  enabled  many  claimants  to  obtain  judgments  in  the 
Court  of  Claims  for  cotton  which  in  fact  they  had  sold  to,  and  were  thus 
paid  for,  by  the  Confederate  government  "produce  agents."  Once  in  a 
while  some  of  the  bills  of  sale  now  filed  in  our  Treasury  Department  have 
saved  the  Government  from  apparently  unmerited  judgments  in  the 
Court  of  Claims.  (See  Blewett's  case,  10  C.  Cls.  R.,  235 ;  13  ib.,  556;  Sprott's 
case,  10  ib.,  1 ;  and  Medway's  case,  10  ib.,  221.)  In  fact,  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  very  little  cotton  was  produced  in  the  South  after  the  year 
1861-2,  it  may  reasonably  be  assumed  that  most  of  the  cotton  seized  by 
the  United  States  army  or  taken  under  the  abandoned  and  captured 
property  act,  was  cotton  that  had  been  heretofore  sold  to  the  Confederate 
government. 

As  early  as  March  17,  1862,  an  act  was  passed  by  the  Confederate  Pro- 
visional Congress  to  destroy  all  exposed  cotton  in  order  to  prevent  its 
falling  into  "the  hands  of  the  enemy." 

In  Mrs.  Alexander's  cotton  case  (9  Wallace)  the  statement  is  made 
that  "it  is  matter  of  history  that  rather  than  permit  it  (the  cotton)  to 
come  into  the  possession  of  the  national  troops,  the  rebel  government 
has  everywhere  devoted  it,  however  owned,  to  destruction.  The  value 
pf  that  destroyed  at  New  Orleans  just  before  its  capture  has  been  estimated 


268  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

at  eighty  millions  of  dollars  "  (p.  420;  see  also  Ford  v.  Surget,  97  U.  S., 
594,  and  cases  there  cited). 

The  same  policy  of  vandal  destruction  is  noted  in  the  Venice  case  (2 
Wall,  258),  in  which  the  claimant,  Cooke,  a  British  subject,  in  order  to 
save  205  bales  of  cotton,  which  he  had  purchased  with  Confederate  money 
in  Mississippi,  from  the  general  destruction  ordered  by  General  Lovell, 
the  then  rebel  commanding-general  at  New  Orleans,  loaded  his  cotton  on 
the  schooner  "Venice"  with  the  intention  of  saving  it  from  burning  and  had 
it  towed  into  Lake  Pontchartrain,  where  it  was  soon  after  seized  by  the 
United  States  Navy  as  a  prize  of  war.  It  was  afterwards  restored  to  the 
claimant  by  a  decree  of  the  District  Court  at  Key  West. 

The  rebel  inhabitants  of  the  South  were  very  active  and  enthusiastic 
in  burning  cotton  to  prevent  its  falling  into  the  "hands  of  the  enemy." 
For  example,  when  our  troops  entered  Charleston,  S.  C.,  they  found  large 
piles  of  cotton  bales  in  flames,  and  unsuccessfully  tried  to  extinguish 
them.  Similarly,  when  the  rebels  fled  from  Columbia,  S.  C.,  before  General 
Sherman,  he  found  the  railroad  depot  and  piles  of  cotton  in  flames,  which 
laid  that  city  in  ashes,  notwithstanding  the  best  efforts  of  our  army  to 
saveit.  (Sherman's  "Memoirs,"  Vol.  II. ,275-287.)  It  is  somewhat  remark- 
able that  long  after  the  war  General  Sherman  had  to  defend  himself  from 
the  unfounded  charge  of  setting  fire  to  Columbia,  and  a  great  many  people, 
North  and  South,  still  pretend  to  believe  that  the  charge  was  true. 

The  excessive  amounts  for  which  judgments  and  appropriations  have 
been  had  for  cotton  successfully  claimed  by  individuals  under  the  Captured 
and  Abandoned  Property  Act,  suggests  what  is  probably  a  common  mistake 
as  to  the  amount  the  Congress  by  that  act  intended  should  be  recovered 
under  it. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  there  was  no  market  for  cotton  in  the  South 
after  the  Southern  seaports  were  blockaded,  and  therefore  there  was  no 
market  price  for  it  in  the  South.  Its  owners  needed  money  for  their  daily 
concerns,  and  the  only  money  obtainable  was  Confederate  currency;  hence 
the  cotton  planters  eagerly  sold  their  cotton  to  the  Confederate  "produce 
agents,"  and  presumably  the  price  paid  for  it  was  the  ante-bellum  price. 
Some  of  the  bills  of  sale  now  in  the  U.  S.  Treasury  Department 
show  that  as  much  as  twelve  cents  a  pound  was  paid  for  cotton  in  Con- 
federate currency,  while  at  the  same  time  the  State  of  Mississippi,  the 
greatest  cotton  State  in  the  South,  was  buying  it  in  large  quantities  at 
five  cents  a  pound.  A  similar  financial  system  was  established  by  the 
Mississippi  legislature  in  1861  for  a  currency  of  State  treasury  notes, 
commonly  known  as  cotton  money.  These  State  treasury  notes  were 
advanced  to  Mississippi  planters  for  cotton  at  the  rate  of  five  cents  per 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  269 

pound,  payable  in  those  notes,  and  the  vendors  became  the  bailees  of  the 
cotton,  as  in  Confederate  purchases.  The  United  States  Government  has 
now  a  complete  record  of  these  Mississippi  cotton-money  advances,  and 
it  has  already  saved  the  Government  a  good  many  thousand  dollars  in 
proving  the  disloyalty  of  Mississippi  claimants  in  the  Court  of  Claims 
under  the  "Bowman  Act  "  and  the  "Tucker  Act."  (See  Taylor  v.  Thomas, 
22  Wall.,  479.)  The  Mississippi  cotton-money  transactions  were  almost 
identical  with  those  of  the  Confederate  cotton  purchases,  and  probably 
the  same  cotton  was  sometimes  afterwards  sold  to  the  Confederate  produce 
agents.  War  saps  morality. 

Mississippi  never  paid  more  than  five  cents  a  pound  for  cotton,  and 
that  rate  in  worthless  Mississippi  treasury  notes,  and  the  Confederate 
government  never  paid  more  than  twelve  cents  a  pound  for  cotton  in 
equally  worthless  Confederate  notes  or  bonds,  whereas  in  every  case  in 
which  claimants  obtained  judgments  in  the  Court  of  Claims  under  the 
Captured  and  Abandoned  Property  Act,  their  cotton  was  always  computed 
at  the  prices  in  New  York  City,  on  the  day  of  its  sale,  there,  or  at  other 
Northern  cities,  where  cotton  was  always  sold  on  an  average  of,  say,  about 
$1  per  pound  in  gold  or  its  equivalent  in  greenbacks.  That  rate  was  the 
reward  which,  according  to  judicial  construction,  Congress  gave  to  the 
supposed  loyal  owners  in  the  South  of  cotton,  when  it  was  seized  under 
the  Captured  and  Abandoned  Property  Act!  Of  course,  such  a  reward 
was  never  intended  by  Congress.  The  most  lavish  reward  that  could  have 
been  intended  in  such  cases  was  the  ante-bellum  value  of  cotton.  Cotton 
had  no  value  whatever  in  the  South  at  the  time  of  its  seizure;  it  was  as 
valueless  there  as  coal  in  a  mine  during  a  fuel  famine;  therefore  paying 
alleged  honest  claimants  about  $1  a  pound  for  cotton  when  the  United 
States  Government  was  heavily  in  debt  and  borrowing  money  at  exorbitant 
discounts  and  interest  was  gross  injustice;  and  if  the  proposed  bill  to  open 
the  gates  again  should  become  a  law,  it  would  be  equally  as  gross  an  in- 
justice to  pay  claimants  more  for  their  cotton  than  it  was  worth  at  the  time 
and  place  of  its  alleged  seizure.  The  custody  by  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment gave  the  cotton  its  value.  The  ante-bellum  price  for  cotton  for  the 
year  1860  would  be  a  most  liberal  award  for  any  cotton  claimant,  even 
if  hie;  claim  were  an  honest  one;  but  how  could  anyone  now  honestly  claim 
payment  for  Confederate  cotton? 

In  order  to  understand  clearly  the  provisions  of  what  is  commonly 
known  as  the  Abandoned  and  Captured  Property  Act  (12  Stat.,  820), 
one  should  take  a  glance  at  a  few  of  the  acts  passed  by  the  Confederate 
Congress  respecting  cotton  arid  other  staples  of  the  South,  and  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  strength  of  its  armies,  and  also  to  know  something  of 


270  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

the  war  problems  that  were  before  the  United  States  Congress  at  that  time. 

The  Confederate  Provisional  Congress,  sitting  at  Montgomery,  Ala,  on 
February  28,  1861,  enacted  a  statute  that  authorized  the  President  of  the 
Confederacy  to  borrow  $15,000,000  upon  stocks  and  bonds,  bearing  interest 
at  the  rate  of  8  per  cent,  per  annum  ( United  States  v.  Padelford,  9  Wall. ,  531 ), 
and  it  imposed  aduty  of  one-eighthof  1  cent  per  pound  upon  cotton  exported 
from  Confederate  seaports  on  and  after  August  1,  1861.  This  act  estab- 
lished that  export  duty  as  a  sinking  fund  for  the  payment  of  the  principal 
of  the  stocks  and  bonds  with  interest,  at  the  rate  of  8  per  cent,  per  annum. 

On  March  17,  1862,  as  the  United  States  forces  were  preparing  to  march 
into  the  South,  there  was  great  apprehension  at  Richmond  lest  much  of 
the  cotton  and  other  staples  of  the  South  might  fall  into  their  possession; 
and  as  exportation  of  such  products  from  any  of  the  Southern  seaports 
would  soon  become  practically  impossible,  the  first  Confederate  Congress, 
on  that  date,  passed  an  act  authorizing  and  directing  the  destruction  of 
cotton,  tobacco,  rice,  sugar,  etc.,  in  order  to  prevent  its  "falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy";  and  for  paying  the  owners  of  all  such  property,  in 
Confederate  bonds  or  notes,  the  value  of  such  property  as  they  would 
voluntarily  destroy,  due  provision  was  made.  On  May  21,  1862,  the 
First  Congress,  at  Richmond,  Va.,  passed  an  act  prohibiting  the  exporta- 
tion of  raw  cotton  and  cotton  yarn  after  June  1,  1862,  except  from  the 
Confederate  seaports  or  through  the  coterminal  frontiers  of  Mexico,  under 
penalty  of  fines,  imprisonment  and  forfeiture  of  the  cotton  and  of  the 
steamboats  and  railroad  cars  used  in  its  transportation. 

So  apprehensive  was  that  Congress  that  some  of  these  staples  might 
reach  the  North,  it  had  enacted  another  statute  about  a  month  previously, 
viz.,  on  April  19,  1862,  making  it  unlawful  for  any  person  to  transport 
cotton,  tobacco,  sugar,  molasses,  sirup,  or  naval  stores  "to  any  place  at 
any  time  in  the  possession  of  the  enemy"  under  liability  of  forfeiture  of 
the  value  of  the  articles  transported,  and  other  severe  penalties.  And,  of 
course,  the  blockading  fleets  prevented,  as  far  as  possible,  the  exportation 
of  such  products  to  neutral  ports.  In  this  way  the  Southern  planters 
who  instigated  secession  soon  found  themselves  without  either  money 
or  markets.  Hence,  in  order  to  relieve  the  stringency  of  the  situation,  the 
same  Congress  two  days  afterwards,  viz.,  April  21,  1862,  passed  another 
act  authorizing  their  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  exchange  bonds  and 
stocks  of  the  Confederate  States  for  "articles  in  kind  "  that  might  be  re- 
quired for  the  use  of  the  rebel  government,  and  also  to  exchange  bonds 
or  stocks  for  cotton,  tobacco,  or  other  agricultural  products  at  such  rates 
as  might  be  adjusted  between  the  parties  and  the  agents  appointed  under 
that  act  by  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  was  authorized 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  271 

to  make  the  necessary  regulations  for  the  "produce  exchange  "  business. 
But  while  this  act  limited  the  amount  of  Confederate  bonds  or  stocks  to 
be  exchanged  for  cotton  and  tobacco  to  $35,000,000,  other  legislation  soon 
followed  providing  for  the  issue  of  Confederate  bonds  and  notes  ad  libitum, 
and  making  the  notes  exchangeable  for  bonds  or  stocks.  This  financial 
limitation  was  never  observed,  and  of  course  such  paper  money  very  soon 
became  redundant  and  comparatively  worthless;  but  as  it  was  the  only 
money  procurable,  and  as  the  agents  were  compensated  by  a  "brokerage 
on  the  business  completed  by  them,"  the  Confederate  produce-exchange 
agents  soon  exchanged  Confederate  bonds  and  stocks  for  probably  all  of 
the  cotton,*  sugar,  tobacco,  rice,  etc.,  produced  in  the  South.  In  that  way 
the  Confederate  government  of  course  very  soon  owned  absolutely  or 
prospectively  all  or  nearly  all  the  cotton  in  the  South,  by  purchase  at 
prices  prescribed  by  the  regulations  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
authorized  by  that  act. 

In  this  situation,  and  as  cotton  could  not  be  exported  nor  was  it  a 
human  food  product,  and  as  grass  was  plentiful  and  easily  grown,  planters 
and  farmers  very  soon  ceased  to  raise  cotton,  because  it  was  then  worth- 
less, and  devoted  their  energies  to  other  agricultural  products. 

Indeed,  although  the  Confederate  treasury  was  then  loaded  down  with 
cotton  "  Produce  Certificates,"  the  army  and  towns-people  were  very  "hard 
up"  for  provisions;  therefore,  on  April  4,  1863,  the  Confederate  Congress 
passed  a  joint  resolution  which  was  more  sensible  than  its  cotton-burning 
statute.  It  earnestly  recommended  "that  the  people,  instead  of  planting 
cotton  and  tobacco,  shall  direct  the  agricultural  labor  mainly  to  the  pro- 
duction of  such  crops  as  will  ensure  a  sufficiency  of  food  for  all  classes," 
including  the  army.  As  Confederate  notes  were  then  a  greatly  depre- 
ciated currency,  the  same  Congress,  twenty  days  thereafter,  on  April 
24,  1863,  passed  an  act  levying  "taxes  for  the  common  defence."  It 
was  very  unique  financial  legislation,  and  to-day  is  amusing  reading.  Its 
first  section  levied  a  tax  of  eight  per  cent,  upon  "the  value  of  all  ... 
cotton  .  .  .  held  or  owned  on  the  first  day  of  July  next,"  and  its 
eleventh  section  adopted  a  tithing  system,  taxing  "each  farmer  and 
planter  in  the  Confederate  States  .  .  .  one-tenth  of  the  sugar, 
molasses,  .  .  .  cotton,  wool  and  tobacco;  the  cotton,  ginned  and 
packed  in  some  secure  manner,  and  tobacco,  shipped  and  packed  in  boxes, 
to  be  delivered  by  him  on  or  before  the  first  day  of  March  in  the  next 
year."  In  the  old  days  the  settlers  and  trappers  in  Tennessee,  having 

i  *  The  supplies  for  the  Confederate  army,  when  obtained  in  Europe,  were  sometimes 
paid  for  in  Confederate  Government  Cotton  Warrants,  which  thus  helped  to  procure 
rifles,  guns  and  ammunition  to  be  used  against  the  Union  army. 


272  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

then  no  money,  devised  a  currency  of  skins;  one  otter  or  beaver  skin  wa 
worth  so  many  "musk-rat  "  skins,  or  'possum  skins,  or  'coon  skins,  ett 
Perhaps  "the  gentleman  from  Tennessee,"  who  was  on  the  ways  and  meant 
committee  that  framed  that  tax  bill,  created  a  currency  in  kind,  as 
therein  provided,  for  paying  taxes.  For  instance,  when  a  "grazer  " 
delivered  to  the  tithing  man  (the  collector  or  the  post  quartermaster) 
one-tenth  of  his  slaughtered  hogs,  the  farmer  or  planter  would  "deliver 
an  equivalent  for  one-tenth  of  the  same  in  cured  bacon,  at  the  rate 
of  sixty  pounds  of  bacon  to  the  one  hundredweight  of  pork";  and 
rules  were  laid  down  for  the  valuation  of  "neat-cattle,  horses,  mules, 
asses,  beeves,"  and  for  deductions  of  the  "value  of  corn  consumed  by 
them." 

Evidently  Mr.  Memminger,  Confederate  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
did  not  sleep  on  a  bed  of  rose  leaves  those  times.  He  was  lampooned 
and  unmercifully  abused  by  the  purblind  editors  and  amateur  financialists 
at  Richmond  for  not  having  exported  the  Southern  cotton  crop  to  Europe 
"before  the  Yankee  blockade,"  and  sold  it  for  gold,  and  for  not  doing 
many  other  financiering  impossibilities.  (See  Life  and  Times  of  Memmin- 
ger, Capers;  and  Schwab's  Confederate  States.) 


APPENDIX   L   (CHAPTER  XVI) 
A  REMARKABLE  CLAIM  REFERRED  TO  IN  CHAPTER  XVI 

Its  Origin  and  Progress.— Project  to  Distribute  Assets  of  the  Confeder- 
acy to  the  Shareholders  of  a  State  Bank. — Alleged  Violation  of  Laws  of 
War  Discussed. — Action  of  General  Butler  Defended. — Extracts  from 
Press  Articles. 

Letter  to  New  York  Tribune,  June  27,  1906. 

Editorial  from  Washington  Times,  Wednesday  evening,  June  27,  1906. 

CONFEDERATE  FUNDS 

CITIZENS'  BANK  OF  LOUISIANA  HAS  NO  CLAIM  ON  WHAT  GEN.  BUTLER 

TOOK 

Sir:  An  extraordinary  evolution  from  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  appeared 
about  the  time  of  President  Cleveland's  first  election,  and  was  violently 
revived  in  successive  Congresses  after  his  second  election. 

The  era  of  prosperity  seems  to  have  given  this  development  new  life 
in  a  special  bill  (Senate  bill  1,816)  that  passed  the  Senate,  without  opposi- 
tion or  debate,  under  a  consideration  by  the  unanimous  consent  courtesy, 
on  June  12,  1906. 

The  bill  is  a  direct  appropriation  donating  $215,820.89.  A  few  words 
about  it. 

By  the  laws  of  war  and  the  usages  of  all  nations  the  property  of  the 
enemy's  government  belongs  to  the  government  of  the  captor.  It  makes 
no  difference  whether  that  property  consists  of  guns  and  ammunition 
captured  on  the  battlefield  or  the  reserve  supplies  stored  in  a  beleaguered 
town  that  is  compelled  to  capitulate  to  the  victor.  The  military  chest  and 
all  the  civic  assets  of  the  enemy's  government  pass  at  once  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  conquering  forces. 

Money  and  bank  deposits  form  no  exception  to  this  rule. 

At  the  time  of  the  capture  of  New  Orleans  by  the  Union  forces  the 
enemy's  government  held  deposits  of  money  in  the  Citizens'  Bank  of 
Louisiana,  a  local  bank  issuing  its  own  circulation  and  doing  the  general 
banking  business  of  receiving  and  paying  out  the  deposits  of  its  customers. 


274  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

It  was  an  official  depository  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America.  The 
commanding  Union  general,  therefore,  required  from  it  certain  specified 
moneys  thus  deposited.  There  is  no  question  of  fact  as  to  what  amount 
of  moneys  was  there.  It  was  larger  than  the  claim  in  this  bill.  There  is 
no  question,  also,  what  was  realized  by  the  Union  forces,  whose  commanding 
general  promptly  transmitted  to  the  United  States  Treasury  the  amount 
of  money  he  collected. 

No  court  has  ever  decided  that  any  obligation,  express  or  implied,  ever 
existed  or  could  exist,  under  any  statute,  code  or  national  usage,  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States  to  return  this  money.  The  Confederate  States 
of  America  could  not  get  it,  nor  could  any  of  its  agents  now  claim  it. 

The  claim  is  now  made  by  the  bank,  saying  that  the  money  belongs  to 
the  stockholders  and  was  wrongfullywrested  from  them  by  General  Butler. 

The  pretext  in  Congress  and  before  the  Executive  in  support  of  this  bill 
is  that  the  Court  of  Claims  has  so  decided.  This  is  not  the  case. 

The  Court  of  Claims  (December,  1890)  filed  a  report  to  Congress,  by  its 
direction  stating  "findings  of  fact"  relative  to  the  claim,  but  was  not 
authorized  to,  and  did  not,  express  any  conclusion  of  law  as  to  whether 
or  not  in  law  or  equity  any  just  claim  existed  against  the  United  States. 
By  the  law  of  the  reference  that  court  was  precluded  from  making  any 
judgment  in  this  respect,  and  it  rendered  none.  (See  Act  of  March  3,  1887, 
Sec.  13  and  14,  Stat.  at  Large,  505.)  No  law  officer  of  the  United  States 
has  been  asked  for  an  opinion  as  to  whether  or  not  any  such  obligation 
existed.  There  can  be  only  one  answer  to  any  such  inquiry:  Congress  is 
appealed  to  solely  upon  the  facts,  enough  of  which  to  demonstrate  the  un- 
meritorious  character  of  the  claim  appear  by  the  proceedings  in  the  Court 
of  Claims  and  the  papers  submitted  to  Congress. 

There  being  no  legal  claim,  it  is  insisted  by  the  claimant  that  General 
Butler,  the  Union  commander,  should  not  have  insisted  upon  bankable 
funds,  but  should  have  been  satisfied  with  the  paper  currency  of  the 
Confederate  States  of  America  payable  after  the  ratification  of  the  peace 
that  it  was  assumed  would  close  the  war,  but  which  treaty  the  Confed- 
erate States  of  America  has  never  yet  executed. 

General  Butler  decided — and  even  had  he  decided  erroneously,  as  he 
did  not,  his  decision  then  was  law  under  the  codes  of  nations — the  general 
decided  that  the  Citizens'  Bank  should  pay  over,  as  they  did,  "whatever 
money  or  property  they  would  acknowledge  they  held  on  deposit  which 
did  not  belong  to  the  bank,  but  did  belong  to  the  enemies  of  his  country; 
and  wherever  the  bank  had  received  par,  either  in  their  own  bills  or  in  gold 
and  silver  or  in  Treasury  notes  when  they  were  at  par.  That  is,  he  required 


SECTIONALISM    UNMARKED  275 

the  money  to  be  paid  over  to  his  order  at  par,  so  that  they  should  pay  out 
exactly  what  they  had  received." 

General  Butler's  order  of  June  13,  1862,  declared:  "The  United  States 
being  entitled  to  the  credits  due  the  Confederate  States  in  the  bank,  that  amount 
must  be  paid  in  money  or  valuable  property." 

The  deposits  having  been  made  in  current  funds  to  the  par  of  the  credits 
shown  in  the  accounts,  what  these  currencies  were  becomes  of  no  conse- 
quence. The  Confederate  States'  treasurers'  accounts  having  been  paid 
into  the  bank  in  Confederate  notes,  he  ordered  their  accounts  to  be  sold 
and  the  proceeds  to  be  accounted  for  and  paid  over  to  him  by  the  bank, 
"the  same  as  the  bank  would  have  accounted  to  the  Confederate  Treasury.', 
There  was  also  Confederate  government  money  to  the  credit  of  its  receivers' 
who  had  gathered  from  Confederate  debtors  of  Northern  creditors  moneys 
which  were  due  to  Northern  creditors,  for  debts  which  by  act  of  the  Con- 
federate Congress  were  confiscated. 

These  moneys  were  compulsorily  paid  over  to  the  Confederate  receivers 
at  par  and  were  "paid  into  the  bank  in  its  own  bills  at  par,  which  were 
good  at  par  long  after  General  Butler  got  to  New  Orleans,  for  he  made  his 
own  deposits  in  the  Citizens'  Bank  in  its  own  bills." 

Among  these  deposits  was  "money  paid  into  the  bank  from  the  registry 
of  the  court  long  before  the  Confederate  notes  were  below  par.  The  bank 
got  full  value.  Why  should  not  the  bank  pay  out  full  value?"  This  is 
what  was  done,  and  no  more.  (See  "Butler's  Book"  and  Parton's  "Butler 
in  New  Orleans.") 

It  is  these  deposits  that  were  to  the  credit  of  the  Confederate  States' 
receivers  and  their  assistants,  that  is  to  say,  the  moneys  representing  the 
debts  due  to  Northern  creditors,  that  General  Butler  exacted  and  com- 
pelled payment  of  at  par,  and  turned  into  the  United  States  Treasury. 
Of  course,  in  the  absence  of  legislation,  the  Northern  creditors  could  not 
get  it  out  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  petition  of  the  only  one  who  ventured 
such  an  exploit  was  promptly  dismissed.  (Fawcett  vs.  United  States,  25, 
Court  of  Claims  Reports,  178.) 

It  was  the  deposits  standing  to  the  credit  of  the  Confederate  receivers 
and  officers  of  the  Confederate  States  (realizing  $215,820.89)  which  General 
Butler  directed  and  required  the  bank  to  pay  to  his  order  for  the  United 
States,  in  gold,  silver  or  United  States  notes,  at  once.  This  order,  having 
been  complied  with,  comprises  the  claim  represented  by  the  pending 
Senate  bill  1,816.  The  claim  represented  by  this  bill  (No.  1,816)  is  made 
up  of  Confederate  States  quartermasters'  and  commissaries'  accounts, 
$24,458.39;  Confederate  States  receivers'  accounts,  $178,897.50;  "special 
accounts,"  being  "money  paid  into  bank  from  the  registry  of  the  court 


276  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

long  before  Confederate  notes  were  below  par,"  $12,465.  The  considera- 
tions relating  to  the  treatment  of  private  property  in  time  of  war  have 
no  application  to  public  property  belonging  to  belligerents.  This  is  a 
distinction  which  seems  to  have  escaped  Attorney-General  Moody's  atten- 
tion. 

It  is  a  strange  presumption  of  the  Citizens'  Bank  claimant  that  the 
bank's  stockholders  or  directors  ever  owned  that  money,  or  lost  any  of  it 
by  the  bank's  paying  it  out  to  the  true  owner.  If  the  bank  had  retained 
the  deposits  until  now  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy  would  not  transfer 
ownership,  or  any  part  of  the  Confederate  assets,  to  the  bank's  stockholders. 
It  was  not  private  property,  and  as  against  all  the  world  the  United  States 
succeeded  to  the  rights  of  the  Confederate  States. 

For  the  United  States  now  to  replace  it  would  be  as  treasure-trove  to 
the  bank's  stockholders,  who  never  had  and  never  can  acquire  ownership 
of  the  original  deposits.  The  loyalty  of  the  stockholders,  therefore,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  If  the  Confederacy  now  existed  as  a  subju- 
gated state,  the  United  States  might  if  it  pleased  return  to  the  Confederacy 
this  portion  of  its  assets  as  a  gift  or  consideration  in  some  treaty,  but  under 
no  system  of  recognized  jurisprudence  would  the  bank's  stockholders 
have  a  standing  as  beneficiaries  or  claimants. 

If  the  bank  claims  to  be  a  beneficiary,  or  asks  the  appropriation  by  legal 
right,  let  it  do  so  as  the  result  of  a  decision  on  the  merits  of  the  law  and  the 
facts,  to  be  rendered  by  the  highest  court  in  the  land,  before  the  Congress 
shall  acknowledge  such  an  extraordinary  claim.  If  the  bank  claims  upon 
the  equities  resulting  from  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy,  the  answer 
is  that  the  United  States  succeeded  to  all  the  assets  of  the  Confederate 
government,  and  no  hardship  can  result  from  withholding  bounty  from 
a  beneficiary  that  can  suffer  no  loss  until  the  proper  officers  of  the  Con- 
federacy shall  successfully  compel  the  bank  again  to  pay  over  these  deposits 
to  Confederate  agencies  after  once  having  paid  them  to  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Attorney-General  Moody's  opinion  of  December  9,  1905  (Senate 
Document  163),  was  rendered  upon  a  petition  that  the  President  should 
take  the  extraordinary  course  of  "ordering"  the  payment  sought  to  be 
achieved  by  the  pending  bill.  The  decision  of  the  Attorney-General  is 
against  such  action.  But  it  will  be  observed  that  he  was  not  asked  who 
did  own  the  deposits  in  question,  or  who  had  any  right  to  them  as  against 
the  United  States. 

Would  the  learned  Attorney-General  venture  to  say  that  the  heirs  of 
the  Confederate  General  Johnston  could  own,  as  against  the  United  States, 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  artillery  and  trains  captured  from  his  army 
by  General  Sherman's  forces? 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  277 

Those  heirs  would  have  as  much  ownership  as  loyal  or  disloyal  bank 
stockholders  would  have  to  Confederate  assets  remaining  in  the  banks 
within  captured  territory. 

The  claim  in  question  has  been  variously  exploited  in  Congress  and  even 
crept  into  an  urgent  deficiency  bill  that  passed  the  present  House.  The 
item  fortunately  in  due  course  disappeared  from  that  bill,  but  is  revived 
in  its  present  form  of  a  special  Senate  bill.  It  has  received  no  open  dis- 
cussion in  Senate  or  House.  An  open  discussion  on  the  merits  of  the  bill 
might  prove  fatal.  Its  passage  through  the  Senate  (June  12,  1906)  with- 
out a  single  objection  being  raised  against  it,  is  indeed  extraordinary, 
as  well  as  the  statement  of  its  sponsor,  the  Senator  from  Louisiana,  who 
moved  it,  saying,  as  reported  in  the  "Congressional  Record,"  page  8587, 
that  the  payment  provided  for  was  for  an  amount  "found  due  said  bank 
by  the  Court  of  Claims."  The  "findings"  of  fact  reported  by  the  Court 
of  Claims,  as  certified  to  the  Senate  on  December  11,  1890,  cover  fourteen 
printed  pages  and  contain  no  such  words  as  "due  said  bank"  or  any  words 
that  can  be  construed  into  such  a  meaning. 

Nor  could  the  most  astute  lawyer,  by  the  keenest  scrutiny  of  these  fourteen 
pages,  discover  therein  any  word,  figure  or  fact  that  would  suggest  that 
the  United  States,  according  to  any  recognized  principle  of  law,  equity, 
justice  or  common  sense,  really  owed  a  dollar  to  the  Citizens'  Bank  of 
Louisiana,  much  less  the  $2 15, 820. 89,  which  the  Senate  bill  1,816  proposes 
to  pay  the  bank,  by  the  unanimous  consent  asked  for  and  obtained  upon 
the  words  above  quoted  from  the  Senator  from  Louisiana. 

Hence,  to  put  it  mildly,  the  Senator's  statement  is  at  least  misleading. 
That  the  United  States  owes  anything  to  that  bank  has  never  been  held 
by  any  court;  and  this  bill  does  not  propose  to  allow  any  court  to  pass  on 
such  a  question. 

The  bill  gives  an  unmeritorious  and  unjust  gratuity,  and  should  be 
killed.  If  passed  it  should  be  vetoed. 

"A    REMARKABLE  CLAIM 

"A  writer  in  the  New  York  Tribune  has  gone  to  the  trouble  to  investi- 
gate in  detail  the  merits  of  a  most  unusual  piece  of  legislation  that  passed 
the  Senate  a  few  days  ago.  His  inquiry  confirms  the  impressions  that 
had  already  been  established  here,  that  the  measure  ought  not  to  have 
passed,  and  that  if  it  shall  become  law  it  will  establish  an  unjust  and 
dangerous  precedent. 

"When  General  Butler  entered  New  Orleans  in  1862  the  Citizens'  Bank 
of  Louisiana,  a  government  depository  of  the  Confederacy,  was  called 


278  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

upon  to  pay  over  to  him  such  funds  of  the  Confederate  States  as  it  held. 
This  was  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  war,  and  the  money  was 
paid  over.  It  was  not  the  money  of  the  stockholders  but  of  the  Con- 
federate government.  But  after  many  years  of  effort,  the  bank,  which  is 
still  in  existence,  has  secured  passage  through  the  Senate  of  a  bill  to  pay 
the  amount — $215,8S0.89 — back  to  the  bank. 

"  It  cannot,  of  course,  be  paid  back  to  the  Confederate  government,  which 
owned  it.  It  should  not  be  paid  to  the  bank,  which  never  owned  it.  The 
stockholders  of  the  bank  will  get  the  benefit  of  it,  and,  as  is  pointed  out 
by  Henry  E.  Tremain  in  the  New  York  paper,  they  have  no  possible 
claim  to  it. 

"This  claim,  now  forty-four  years  old,  was  in  the  Court  of  Claims  many 
years.  Mr.  Tremain  declares  there  never  has  been  a  judgment  of  any  court 
that  the  Federal  Government  was  liable  to  the  bank  for  it.  Last  Decem- 
ber Attorney-General  Moody  passed  on  a  petition  which  asked  that  the 
President  pay  over  the  amount,  without  any  Congressional  action.  The 
Attorney-General  overruled  this,  but  did  not  decide  to  whom  the  money 
belonged.  Clearly,  it  belonged  to  the  Confederate  government,  not  to 
the  shareholders  of  the  bank.  To  pay  it  now  to  the  bank  is  a  most  remarkable 
gratuity,  which  is  alike  lacking  in  justification  and  dangerous  in  precedent. 

"So  many  claims  which  possess  far  greater  merit  than  this  one  are  in- 
continently rejected,  without  even  fair  consideration,  that  the  wonder  is 
increased  at  the  smoothness  of  the  unobjected  passage  of  the  donation 
involved  in  this  case.  The  pathway  of  claim  bills  through  Congress  is 
traditionally  thorny.  In  this  case,  however,  the  claim  seems  to  have 
moved  through  on  greased  skids,  and  the  mystery  of  it  certainly  ought  to 
have  open-air  investigation  before  it  becomes  law." — Washington  Times, 
June  27,  1906 


APPENDIX   M   (CHAPTER   XVI) 
ALLEGED  VIOLATIONS  OF  THE  TERMS  OF  CONFEDERATE  SURRENDER. 

Details  of  Appropriations  referred  to  in  Chapter  XVI,  p.  204. — Operations 
under  same. — Curious  Awards. — Reflections. 

In  an  address  to  his  comrades  of  the  Second  Fire  Zouaves,  73d  Regiment  New  York 
Volunteers'  Veteran  Association,  at  a  meeting  held  at  their  rooms,  No.  128  West  17th 
Street,  New  York  City,  on  Sunday  afternoon,  February  12th,  1905,  a  speaker*  said  in 
part: 

"A  deficiency  of  $117,987.30  is  asked  of  Congress  to  pay  Confederate 
soldiers  for  horses  they  lost.  Will  it  pass?  Probably  yes.  Why?  Be- 
cause in  a  prior  'Deficiency  Bill,'  passed  April  27th,  1904,  there  was,  strange 
to  say,  appropriated  for  the  same  purpose  $125,000.  (See  33  U.  S.  Statutes, 
pp.  394-401.) 

"And  why  was  that  passed?  Was  there  any  general  law  requiring  it? 
No;  but  there  was  an  item  like  it  in  the  prior  'Deficiency  Bill'  of  the  year 
before;  and  was  not  that  a  good  reason? 

"In  the  'Deficiency  Bill  '  of  March  3,  1903,  there  was  appropriated  for 
the  same  purpose  $50,000.  (See  32  U.  S.  Statutes,  1031-1048.)  And  why 
was  that  passed?  For  no  reason  at  all,  except  to  keep  the  business  going 
so  as  to  pay,  and  to  encourage,  more  claims  than  were  originally  contem- 
plated, when  the  first  appropriation  for  such  a  purpose  was  enacted  the 
year  before.  How  much  was  that?  The  answer  is  to  read  chapter  34 
of  the  Act  of  Congress  approved  by  President  Roosevelt,  February  27, 
1902,  and  there  discover  the  Congressional  appropriation  of  $50,000.  (See 
32  U.  S.  Statutes,  p.  43.) 

"This  appropriation  was  made  to  pay  for  private  horses  stolen  from 
Confederate  soldiers  by  Union  troops  'acting  under  orders,'  if  any  such 
orders  were  given,  after  the  surrender. 

"Well,  were  any  such  orders  given?  If  so,  when,  where  and  by  whom? 
Surely  Congress  would  not  enact  such  an  appropriation  in  a  special  law 
devoted  to  nothing  else  without  the  official  report,  or  at  least  the  word 
of  honor  of  some  responsible  military  commander  of  the  Union  forces 
charged  with  such  an  offence.  You  think  so? 

"Well,  so  would  any  fair-minded  man.  But  that  is  exactly  what  Con- 
gress did.  Not  only  did  the  Committees  of  the  Senate  and  the  House  to 

*  H.  E.  Tremain;  reported  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Monday,  February  13,  1905. 


280  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

which  the  Bill  was  referred  report  upon  it  favorably  without  the  scratch 
of  a  pen  as  to  the  facts  from  any  Union  military  officer,  but  Congress  enacted 
it  into  law  without  enquiring  of  surviving  Union  officers  or  soldiers  whether 
any  state  of  facts  probably  existed  that  warranted  this  Congressional 
aspersion  of  infamous  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  high-minded  victors 
who  were  obedient  to  Grant  and  to  the  Appomattox  terms.  No  oppor- 
tunity was  offered  for  Union  soldiers  to  refute  the  offensive  charge. 

"But  it  is  supposed  such  Bills  could  not  pass  a  Congress  friendly  to  the 
administration  without  the  acquiescence  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  or  the 
President,  who  must  and  did  sign  his  approval.  What  have  you  to  say 
to  that? 

"The  answer  is  to  read  the  act  itself,  and  then  learn  what  has  been  done 
under  it  to  the  tune  of  thus  far  paying  8225,000,  and  more  still  asked  for. 

"The  act  provides  for  the  'investigation,'  under  the  direction  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  of  'claims  of  artillery  and  cavalry  officers  and  private 
soldiers  of  the  Confederate  army  for  horses,  side-arms  and  baggage  alleged 
to  have  been  taken  from  them  by  Federal  troops,  at  and  after  the  surrender 
at  Appomattox,  acting  under  orders,  in  violation  of  the  terms  of  surrender 
of  the  Confederate  armies,'  and  payment  therefor  'subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  Secretary  of  War.'  'Provided  that  the  expenditure  under  this  act 
shall  not  exceed  fifty  thousand  dollars  ' — (more  than  enough  to  pay 
for  five  hundred  Confederate  horses,  a  number  that  surely  could  not  have 
been  taken  by  Federal  troops  'acting  under  orders,'  without  the  ability 
of  any  one  now  living  to  prove  such  orders,  had  they  ever  in  fact  been 
given). 

"Yes — that  is  exactly  what  Congress  did.  A  Tennessee  Senator 
was  looking  for  re-election.  The  Tennessee  Senator  promoted  the  Bill 
that  on  its  face  related  to  occurrences  '  at '  Appomattox.  Under  it  the 
claims  of  his  old  soldiers  who  surrendered  elsewhere  than  at  Appomattox 
have  been  paid.  The  bill  was  passed  in  the  special  interest  of  Tennessee 
soldiers  who  were  not  at  Appomattox  at  all !  The  Bill  was  covertly  framed, 
and  pointed  only  to  Appomattox.  Whether  under  the  correct  interpreta- 
tion of  the  text  of  the  Bill  any  claims  outside  of  those  arising  at,  and  in 
immediate  consequence  of  the  Appomattox  surrender,  should  properly  be 
included,  need  not  now  be  argued.  Other  sets  of  claimants  have,  in  fact, 
been  paid. 

"In  all,  and  without  the  report  of  Union  Commanders  that  any  such 
orders  as  specified  in  the  Bill  were  ever  given,  and  without  special  investiga- 
tion of  the  movements  or  orders  of  Union  troops  at  the  places  where  the 
alleged  wrong-doings  occurred,  the  Secretary  of  War  has  already  paid  1,556 
such  claims!  The  Government  has  already  paid  out  over  $200,000  on  such 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  281 

claims  and  700  to  900  claims  yet  remain  under  consideration,  with  many 
more  in  prospect  of  arrival.* 

"The  possible  theory  of  the  enactment  itself  is  obvious  from  its  text. 
It  assumes  the  existence  of  an  instance  where  so-called  '  Federal  troops  ' 
'  acting  under  orders,'  given  with  more  or  less  propriety,  and  possibly  given 
wrongfully,  despoiled  a  surrendered  and  paroled  enemy.  Such  instances 
in  the  nature  of  things  must  have  been  rare ;  and  if  they  really  occurred,  a 
generous  victor  was  willing,  even  after  the  lapse  of  thirty-eight  years,  to 
discover  and  to  reimburse  to  the  extent  of  fifty  thousand  dollars,  upon  due 
proof  of  the  official  character  of  the  despoiling.  It  must  be  established, 
however,  to  have  been  of  an  official  character;  i.e.,  by  troops  'acting  under 
orders,'  and  not  the  seizure  by  an  irresponsible  pillager,  a  straggler,  a 
deserter,  from  either  army,  or  a  tramp,  or  perhaps  an  ordinary  thief  or 
highwayman  clothed  in  blue. 

"More  than  one  locality  in  the  theatre  of  war  was  for  many  weeks  after 
the  surrender  of  both  Lee  and  Johnston  overrun  with  marauders,  recogniz- 
ing no  law  except  in  the  presence  of  Union  forces  engaged  in  establishing 
public  order. 

"A  few  instances  of  that  sort  occurred  along  the  borders  of  North 
Carolina  and  Virginia,  and  in  the  region  covered  by  the  flight,  pursuit  and 
capture  of  the  Jeff  Davis  party.  The  military  history  of  each  locality, 
and  of  each  fortnight  following  the  surrenders  is  even  yet  capable  of  de- 
scription sufficiently  accurate  to  locate  Union  officers  who  might  have 
assumed  (if  any  did)  to  give  the  alleged  despoiling  orders. 

"To  restore  to  civic  order  a  region  disordered  by  the  devastation  of  a 
sanguinary  war,  is  not  the  task  of  an  hour,  or  of  a  day.  It  was  accom- 
plished marvellously  well.  But  when  it  comes  to  paying  for  upwards  of 
2,300  horses,  the  surviving  Union  soldiers  may  well  ask  for  evidence  as  to 
who  got  those  horses! 

"The  Secretary  of  War  was  relied  on  to  'investigate  '  this  fact.  True, 
the  claimants,  or  their  representatives,  submit  affidavits;  but  of  what 
character?  Here  is  a  sample: 

"  'A.  B.  .  .  .  deposes  that  his  horse  was  taken  from  him  by  the  troops  of  the 
United  States  acting  under  orders  and  in  violation  of  the  terms  of  the  surrender  under 
which  he  was  paroled.' 

"Here  the  affiant  uses  the  language  of  the  statutory  conclusion;  thus 
making  a  charge  that  would  not  be  accepted  by  any  court,  or  magistrate, 

*  This  was  said  in  1905.  As  late,  however,  as  January  30,  1907,  the  Quartermaster- 
General  reported  to  the  Senate  that  by  reason  of  inquiries  for  claims  yet  to  be  filed 
"tlie  number  and  amount  of  such  claims  cannot  be  definitely  stated." 


282  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

unless  accompanied  by  statements  of  the  sources  of  knowledge,  or  of  the 
circumstances  upon  which  the  charge  is  grounded. 

"Every  lawyer  knows  that  a  deposition  to  a  naked  conclusion  of  law, 
or  to  a  conclusion  in  the  mind  of  the  witness,  furnishes  no  proof  of  the 
actual  fact  upon  which  the  conclusion  itself  depends. 

"Some  witnesses,  more  conscientious  perhaps,  say  that  the  horse  of  the 
paroled  soldier  was  taken  by  Federal  troops  '  presumably  '  acting  under 
orders.  That  is  to  say,  that  claimant  indulges  in  that  presumption.  In 
some  cases  he  names  the  rumored  commander  or  command;  but  there  was 
no  verification  of  this  feature  before  Congress,  or  to  substantiate  the  claims 
paid. 

"Nevertheless  awards  are  yet  being  made,*  and  further  appropriations 
are  being  sought  for;  as  if  it  was  the  constitutional  duty  of  the  United 
States  to  pay  for  horses  lost  by  Confederate  soldiers  on  their  way  home, 
or  after  arriving  home,  from  the  battlefield. 

"If  the  horses  seized,  or  paid  for,  were  ever  in  fact  received  or  used  by 
the  United  States  there  is  no  proof  furnished  of  the  fact. 

"The  money  payments  made  by  the  United  States  Treasury  are  each 
and  every  one  grounded  on  the  charge  of  wrong-doing  done  by  an  officer 
of  the  United  States  army. 

"Do  the  surviving  officers  of  the  United  States  army  who  served  in  the 
great  war  relish  the  charge  thus  made  against  them  with  the  approbation 
of  Congress?  If  so,  they  had  better  help  to  pass  a  further  appropriation, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  a  stroke  of  the  pen  by  the  Secretary  of 
War  would  not  only  stop  these  absurd  payments,  but  do  justice  to  hon- 
orable soldiers  and  officers,  most  of  whom  are  dead. 

"This  action  by  Congress  and  by  the  Executive,  capable  of  being  in- 
spired, it  may  be,  by  a  generous  though  indiscreet  motive,  remains  never- 
theless as  a  black  stain,  officially  impressed  with  all  the  power  of  the  United 
States  and  with  the  seal  of  its  Treasury  warrant,  upon  Grant  and  his 
generals! 

"Would  President  Grant  have  signed  his  approval  to  such  an  enact- 
ment by  Congress?  Would  his  big-hearted  Secretary  of  War,  General 
Rawlins,  have  paid  such  claims  without  court-martialing  the  officer — 
if  any — or  soldier,  responsible  for  violating  the  terms  of  the  surrender? 

"Were  the  author  living  who  when  dying  spoke  the  immortal  words, 
'  Let  us  have  peace,'  would  he  not  now  in  amazement  declare,  'Let  us 
have  light?'" 

*  A  press  despatch  in  the  New  York  Herald  (July  13, 1906)  says  that  "  after  forty 
years,  Confederate  soldiers  of  General  John  H.  Morgan's  command  are  receiving  pay 
from  the  Federal  Government  for  horses  which  were  taken  from  them  when  they  surren- 
dered. The  amount  each  received  is  $125." 


APPENDIX   N    (CHAPTER   X) 

THE  VALEDICTORY  OF  A  NORTHERN  SENATOR. — THE  SOUTH  CONDEMNED 
AND  WARNED. — DENUNCIATION  OP  AN  AVOWED  SECTIONALISM. —  ISSUE 
A  NATIONAL  ONE. — A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW. 

In  the  second  session  of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress  (December,  1906), 
Representative  Slayden,  of  Texas,  introduced  a  bill  (20,989  H.  R.)  to 
discontinue  the  enlistment  of  negroes  in  the  army. 

One  Northern  Democrat  (Patterson)  has  called  attention  to  the  existing 
evils  of  sectionalism  and  sounded  a  note  of  warning  in  the  Senate.  The 
discussion  was  most  interesting  and  instructive.  He  said: 

".  .  .  This  country,  politically  speaking  and  judging  from  elections 
and  the  political  complexion  of  this  body,  is  intensely  sectional;  and  I 
am  willing  to  submit  to  the  country  whether  speeches  such  as  the  one 
just  closed  by  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  are  calculated  to  soften 
the  asperities  that  lead  to  sectionalism,  or  to  give  a  more  patriotic  division 
of  political  power  between  the  States  of  the  Union. 

"The  North  can  lay  no  particular  claim  to  a  desire  for  justice  for  the 
negro — no  more  than  the  South.  I  recall  very  well  when  in  many  of  the 
Northern  legislatures  there  were  negro  members.  I  recall  very  well  when 
a  Republican  President  did  not  hesitate  to  appoint  worthy  and  capable 
negroes  to  high  offices.  I  recall  very  well  when  it  was  the  fond  hope  of 
the  people  of  this  country,  with  apparently  ample  grounds  upon  which 
to  expect  the  realization  of  the  hope,  that  the  race  issue  would  in  time 
disappear,  and  that  the  time  would  come  when  manhood  and  worth, 
education  and  intelligence  would  settle  every  dispute,  and  when  color 
would  prove  no  substantial  bar  to  equality  in  all  things  before  the  law. 

"But,  Mr.  President,  as  time  has  gone  on,  race  prejudices,  so  graphically 
described  by  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  have  developed  in  the  North 
about  as  rapidly  as  they  have  in  the  South,  the  only  difference  being  in  the 
intensity  of  the  prejudices.  Where  is  there  a  Northern  State  now  that 
contains  a  colored  member  of  the  legislature?  Where  is  there  a  Northern 
State  in  which  a  negro  is  elected  to  an  office  of  responsibility?  In  which 


284  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

Northern  State  does  the  appointing  power  select  negroes  of  education 
and  moral  worth  and  ability  to  fill  positions  of  importance? 

"We  find  in  the  North,  Mr.  President,  that  in  nearly  every  detail  of 
business  matters  the  negro  is  deprived  of  every  position  of  responsibility. 
They  are  not  even  permitted  to  drive  street  cars  or  to  collect  the  fares. 
In  many  of  the  Northern  States  the  negro  is  not  even  permitted  to  be  a 
member  of  a  labor  union.  The  services  that  he  performs  are  now  menial 
in  character  or  almost  wholly  personal.  Under  these  conditions  it  may 
not  seem  in  good  form  for  men  of  the  North  to  decry  to  any  very  great 
extent  the  attitude  of  such  as  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina. 

"But,  Mr.  President,  that  does  not  meet  the  proposition.  There  are 
10,000,000,  or  thereabouts,  of  negroes  in  the  United  States  to-day.  By 
a  Constitutional  amendment,  adopted  at  the  close  of  the  war,  those  negroes 
had  conferred  upon  them — it  might  be  said,  had  forced  upon  them — the 
rights  of  citizenship.  The  States  were  prohibited  from  depriving  them 
of  the  right  to  vote  by  reason  of  their  color  or  former  condition.  Under 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  the  blacks  had  conferred  upon  them  the 
right  to  vote,  with  only  such  exceptions  or  limitations  as  applied  to  white 
men.  This  legislation  has  led  to  an  intensity  of  feeling  against  the  black 
man  in  a  number  of  the  Southern  States  and  accounts  in  a  measure  for 
the  attitude  of  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  upon  the  race  question. 
The  Senator  insists  that  there  is  but  one  remedy  for  the  evils  he  claims 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  has  inflicted  upon  the  South,  which  is  the 
repeal  of  that  amendment  and  the  deprivation  of  the  black  man  of  the  right 
to  vote.  The  appeals  the  Senator  has  made  is  against  not  only  social 
equality,  but  also  against  political  equality  between  the  whites  and  the 
blacks. 

"  If  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  was  the  only  distinguished  Southern 
man  who  has  entered  upon  a  crusade  to  secure  this  result,  perhaps  I  might 
not  notice  it,  for  the  Senator  is  in  many  respects  sui  generis,  and  is  quite 
willing  to  admit  that  such  is  the  case ;  but  Governor  Vardaman,  of  Missis- 
sippi, and  Hoke  Smith,  of  Georgia,  soon  to  be  Governor  of  Georgia,  if  not 
already  the  chief  executive  of  that  State,  have  made  the  same  declarations, 
and  there  is  rapidly  being  organized  in  the  South  a  movement  to  demand 
that  the  North  unite  with  the  South  in  the  repeal  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment and  the  practical  return  of  the  negroes  of  the  country  to  a  condition 
of  peonage.  .  .  .  Forty-odd  years  have  elapsed  since  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.  The  question  of  the  negro  has  been  one  that  has  entered  into 
the  social,  political,  and  public  life  of  the  American  people,  and  the  man 
who  has  not  investigated,  so  that  he  may  think  and  talk  intelligently 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  285 

about  it  without  visiting  the  black  belt,  has  lived  to  little  purpose  and  has 
poorly  observed  the  duties  that  devolve  upon  him  as  a  citizen.  I  am  well 
aware  that  in  the  belt  of  States  commencing  at  Texas  and  ending  with 
North  Carolina  the  white  and  the  negro  populations  are  almost  equal,  the 
population  in  that  tier  of  States  amounting  to  somewhere  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  6,000,000  whites  and  6,000,000  blacks. 

".  .  .  The  blacks  and  the  whites  must  live  together.  It  is  idle 
to  talk  of  the  separation  of  the  races.  They  cannot  be  winnowed  out  and 
set  apart  in  different  sections  of  the  country,  nor  can  the  negro  be  deported 
to  any  other  country. 

".  .  .  I  have  a  right,  Mr.  President,  to  speak  in  behalf  of  the  several 
million  of  men  who  do  not  live  in  the  South  and  who  belong  to  the  same 
political  party  with  both  of  us,  to  express  their  views,  if  I  can,  upon  this 
great  issue,  and  not  allow  it  to  go  abroad  by  the  silence  of  Democratic 
Senators,  that  every  Democratic  Senator  stands  with  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina  for  the  disfranchisement  of  the  negro;  and,  as  I  suggested 
a  little  while  ago,  for  practically  returning  him  to  a  state  of  peonage. 

"Mr.  President,  in  the  early  days  after  the  rebellion  there  were  terrible 
times  in  the  Southern  States,  and  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  has 
enlightened  the  country,  through  his  office  of  Senator,  as  to  the  part  he 
was  willing  to  play  in  the  acts  that  he  approved.  There  were  White  Caps 
and  Ku-Klux,  and  there  were  tissue  ballots;  there  were  other  methods 
for  suppressing  the  vote  of  the  negro  in  the  South.  I  need  not  say,  Mr. 
President,  that,  in  my  opinion,  millions  of  the  best  people  in  the  South 
reprobated  that  method  of  securing  the  supremacy  of  the  whites  and  pro- 
cured its  abandonment  and  undertook  to  accomplish  the  same  thing  through 
the  agency  of  the  law. 

"Southern  States,  one  after  the  other,  called  constitutional  conventions, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  eliminating  a  great  proportion  of  the  negro  vote 
have  incorporated  voting  qualifications  in  their  constitutions  that,  in  my 
opinion,  were  at  the  time,  and  will  continue  to  be  for  many  years,  quite 
ample  to  leave  the  whites  of  the  South  in  unqualified  political  control. 
And  I  want  to  say,  Mr.  President,  that  so  long  as  the  Southern  people 
contented  themselves  with  maintaining  political  supremacy  through  the 
agency  of  constitutional  and  statutory  provisions — enactments  that  bore 
equally  upon  the  blacks  and  the  whites — the  people  of  the  North  were 
content  to  allow  the  South  to  work  out  this  problem  for  itself. 

"I  contented  myself  with  referring  to  the  fact  that  the  Senator  upon 
several  occasions,  here  and  elsewhere,  had  in  a  boastful  spirit  told  of  law- 
less intimidation  to  overcome  the  blacks.  I  said  I  did  not  believe  they 


286  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

were  approved  by  the  best  people  of  the  South.  I  merely  referred  to  a 
historical  fact  that  I  might,  in  logical  order,  reach  the  point  where  the 
people  of  the  South  undertook  by  lawful  methods,  by  constitutional  pro- 
visions supplemented  by  statutory  enactments,  to  give  the  whites  suprem- 
acy in  the  South.  Those  enactments  limit  the  voting  franchise  by  educa- 
tional and  property  qualifications  and  also  by  what  the  Senator,  in  a  recent 
speech  in  Maryland,  referred  to  as  the  'understanding'  clause  of  the  con- 
stitutions. When  we  recall  the  degree  of  ignorance  that  prevails  among 
the  blacks  in  the  South,  their  lack  of  education,  the  intense  poverty  of 
most  of  them,  we  can  well  understand  that  with  these  new  enactments 
providing  educational,  property-holding,  and  'understanding'  qualifica- 
tions, it,  must  be  for  many  and  many  and  many  a  year  that  the  whites  of 
South  Carolina  will  be  in  unquestioned  and  unchallenged  control  of  their 
State. 

".  .  .  When  the  best  thought  of  the  South,  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
moving the  odium  associated  with  flagrant  violations  of  the  law,  with 
personal  violence  of  a  desperate  and  degrading  character  upon  the  colored 
part  of  the  population,  caused  their  people  to  meet  in  constitutional  con- 
ventions, and  to  adopt  constitutional  amendments  that  put  every  Southern 
State  under  the  complete  control  of  the  whites  for  many  generations  to 
come,  it  occurred  to  me  that  such  great  and  distinguished  leaders  as  the 
Senator  from  South  Carolina  and  the  governors  of  Georgia  and  Mississippi 
should  engage  their  talents  and  influence  in  assuaging  the  animosities 
that  grow  out  of  race  feeling  and  endeavor  by  other  methods  than  such  as 
arouse  prejudice,  to  not  only  bring,  but  to  maintain,  peace  between  the 
two  races  in  this  country. 

"Mr.  President,  what  I  want  to  make  clear  is  this:  That  while  the  people 
of  the  country  approve,  at  least  by  their  silence,  the  efforts  of  the  people 
of  the  South  to  secure  and  maintain  white  supremacy  in  the  different 
States  through  the  agency  of  the  law,  they  deprecate  open  boastful 
statements  by  distinguished  men  of  the  South  that  the  law  is  a  farce; 
that  the  law  is  only  intended  for  one  class  of  people,  and  does  not 
operate  upon  the  other;  that  the  law  is  simply  a  fraud  upon  the  people 
of  the  nation  and  is  used  in  the  spirit  that  marked  the  treatment  of  the 
negroes  before  the  constitutional  amendments  were  adopted,  according 
to  the  avowals  of  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina." 

Taking  up  the  question  of  lynch  law,  he  continued: 
"Mr.  President,  I  did  not  say  that  any  distinguished  man  from  the  South 
had  stated  that  lynch  law  was  proper;  but  I  will  name  the  Senator.  I  will 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  287 

name  the  distinguished  man  from  the  South  who  travels  all  over  the  North 
lecturing  at  Chautauquas  and  in  great  cities,  who,  coming  from  the  South, 
received  as  a  representative  of  the  South,  does  openly  proclaim  in  nearly 
every  speech  he  makes  that  the  constitutional  provisions  as  put  into  the 
constitutions  of  several  Southern  States  were  intended  to  operate  only 
upon  the  negroes,  and  did  not  operate  upon  the  whites,  while  in  terms 
they  were  to  operate  upon  both. 

"I  clipped  from  the  Baltimore  American  of  a  few  days  ago,  from  the 
issue  of  January  5,  the  report  of  a  lecture  delivered  by  the  distinguished 
Senator  from  South  Carolina  in  the  State  of  Maryland;  and  whatever  the 
distinguished  Senator  would  say  in  Maryland  he  would  say  in  New  York, 
or  in  Illinois,  or  in  Colorado. 

"And  if  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  has  been  misquoted,  certainly 
he  will  not  hestiate  to  make  note  of  the  fact  as  I  read.  I  quote  from  the 
Baltimore  American  the  following  from  that  speech: 

"  '  The  amended  Constitution  has  declared  that  the  negro  shall  have  the  same  rights  as 
enjoyed  by  a  white  man.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  declared  the 
State  has  the  right  to  regulate  its  suffrage  privilege.  The  Fourteenth  Amendment 
gives  the  negro  the  right  to  vote.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment  declared  that  no  State 
shall  pass  a  law  discriminating  against  the  negro.  We  can  pass  laws  depriving  foreigners 
of  the  right  to  vote,  but  we  cannot  pass  laws  applying  to  the  negroes.  We  are,  there- 
fore, bound  and  shackled  by  this  law.  We  looked  for  relief.  We  decided  that  no  man 
should  vote  unless  he  can  read  or  write  or  pay  taxes  on  property  valued  at  $300.  We 
had  the  problem  of  saving  votes  of  some  of  our  white  citizens  who  could  not  read  nor 
write  or  who  did  not  own  property  worth  $300.  I  would  have  my  hand  burned  off 
before  I  would  agree  to  the  disfranchisement  of  a  single  white  man  unless  he  committed 
some  crime.  I  urged  our  people  to  hold  a  constitutional  convention.  I  was  called  a 
demagogue.  Well,  I  tell  the  truth  as  I  see  it. 

"  '  We  introduced  the  understanding  clause,  which  we  found  we  borrowed  from  Missis- 
sippi. It  is  the  most  charming  piece  of  mechanism  ever  invented.  Well,  the  officers  of 
registration  were  white  men.  We  do  not  want  any  more  negro  officers  in  South  Caro- 
lina. We  had  enough  of  them  once  to  last  us  ten  thousand  years. 

"  '  I  never  served  as  a  registration  judge,  but  I  suspect  I  know  how  the  judges  acted. 
I  know  if  I  had  been  a  registration  officer  I  would  have  acted  as  I  shrewdly  suspect 
that  the  judges  did  act.  The  white  man  would  apply  for  registration.  "Can  you 
read?"  the  judge  would  ask.  "No."  "Can  you  write?"  "No."  "Do  you  own 
property  worth  $300?"  "No."  The  judge  would  then  read  a  single  clause  of  the 
Constitution.  The  white  man  could  understand  it.  When  the  negro  applied  and 
could  not  read  or  write  or  did  not  own  property,  he  was  asked  to  explain  a  clause  with 
constitutional! ties  on  which  lawyers  differ.  He  could  not  explain  the  clause.  "Very 
sorry,"  said  the  judge;  "we  cannot  register  you."  "Good-by,  boss." 

" '  The  negro  quit  voting  in  South  Carolina  in  1882.  He  found  that  it  was  not  healthy 
to  go  to  the  polls.' 


288  SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED 

"Mr.  President,  when  you  recall  that  there  are  about  10,000,000  negroes 
in  the  country  and  that  about  90  per  cent,  of  those  are  in  the  States  of  the 
South,  justice  demands  that  so  small  a  number,  relatively,  shall  not  be 
sufficient  upon  which  to  indict  the  entire  black  race  for  the  crime  and 
to  use  it  as  a  logical  argument  in  support  of  the  proposition  that  the 
10,000,000  black  population  shall  be  deprived  of  all  political  rights  and 
be  practically  returned  to  the  condition  in  which  they  were  before  the  war, 
all  on  account  of  the  misdeeds  of  but  thirty-four  of  their  people. 

"Mr.  President,  what  I  appeal  for  is  this  (and  I  do  it  in  behalf  of  the 
people  of  the  South  as  well  as  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  the  North),  that 
it  shall  not  stand  unchallenged  that  the  aim  of  the  people  and  the  states- 
men of  the  South  is  to  disfranchise  the  negro;  that  the  aim  is  to  repeal  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment ;  that  their  purpose  is  to  return  10,000,000  negroes 
to  practical  bondage,  to  range  them  side  by  side  with  the  horse  and  the 
cow  upon  the  plantation,  to  treat  them  with  kindness  if  they  merit  it, 
to  pat  them  as  you  pat  a  swift  and  kindly  horse,  to  give  them  food  as  you 
would  feed  your  animals,  and  deprive  them  of  all  political  rights  under  the 
Constitution  of  our  country,  in  this  the  greatest  and  most  righteous  re- 
public of  which  the  world  has  record. 

"I  give  it  as  my  opinion  that  unless  this  sort  of  talk  by  leading  Southern 
statesmen  is  stopped,  although  it  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  best  thought 
of  the  South,  the  restoration  of  Democratic  supremacy  in  any  State  of 
the  North  is  unlikely. 

"I  repeat,  Mr.  President,  what  I  have  before  suggested,  that  the  best 
thought  of  the  South  is  not  in  line  with  utterances  that  glory  in  the  lynch- 
ing of  any  man,  whatever  his  crime,  in  an  old-established  and  civilized 
society.  It  is  not  in  line  with  the  thought  that  would  restore  the  negro 
practically  to  a  state  of  bondage,  but  it  is  looking  forward  to  the  solving 
of  these  great  problems  along  lines  of  reason  and  justice  and  common 
sense,  recognizing  that  the  white  and  the  black  must  live  together  and  that 
it  is  utterly  impossible  that  the  nation  will  consent  to  the  disfranchisement 
of  10,000,000  of  its  people  whom  it  enfranchised  at  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War.  .  .  . 

"Mr.  President,  the  man  who  presides  over  the  University  of  Virginia, 
the  great  institution  of  learning  that  was  founded  by  Thomas  Jefferson, 
in  touching  upon  this  subject  said: 

" '  The  best  Southern  people  are  too  wise  not  to  know  that  posterity  will  judge  them 


SECTIONALISM    UNMASKED  280 

according  to  the  wisdom  they  use  in  this  great  concern.     They  are  too  jusf  not  to  know 
that  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do  with  a  human  being,  and  that  is  to  give  him  a  chance. 

"  '  For  a  superior  race  to  hold  down  an  inferior  one  simply  that  the  superior  race  may 
have  the  services  of  the  inferior  was  the  social  doctrine  of  medievalism.  To  deny  the 
negro  the  strongest  and  the  highest  influences  is  to  enslave  him  to  a  life  of  moral  weak- 
ness and  moral  degradation.  And  the  God  who  made  him,  in  the  final  settlement  of 
human  history,  will  not  likely  overlook  such  unrighteous  conduct.' 

"Mr.  President,  I  heartily  echo  these  sentiments  of  the  distinguished 
scholars  and  educators  of  the  South.  I  cannot  give  a  certain  panacea 
for  these  troubles,  but  I  think  there  is  one  panacea  that  is  well  worth  trying. 
It  is  the  enactment  of  just  and  righteous  laws  under  the  Constitution,  the 
execution  of  those  laws,  and  the  discountenancing  upon  every  provocation 
of  mob  law  and  lynchings  because  merely  accused  of  crime.  Continue 
as  the  South  has  begun,  to  educate  the  negro,  make  him  safe  in  his  property 
holdings,  surround  him  with  influences  that  will  improve  his  moral  char- 
acter, and  above  all  impress  him  with  the  justice  and  humanity  of  the 
dominant  race.  The  negro  has  become  a  part  of  this  national  fabric;  his 
place  in  it  must  be  a  logical  one ;  it  must  be  one  in  which  he  can  maintain 
his  self-respect  and  enjoy  the  benefits  and  bear  the  burdens  of  a  Govern- 
ment he  helps  to  maintain.  This  does  not  embrace  the  idea  of  social 
equality  at  all.  No  one  is  so  ignorant  in  this  day  and  generation  as  to 
regard  it  as  within  the  pale  of  possibility.  The  problem  must  be  worked 
out  along  lines  of  law  and  righteousness.  If  that  shall  be  done,  the  diffi- 
culties will  vanish  with  the  advance  of  time,  and  peace  and  hearty  co- 
operation will  take  the  place  of  strife  and  industrial  chaos."  * 

*  Cong.  Reo.,  pp.  1059-66. 


INDEX 


Abandoned  and  Captured  Property  Act 267,  269 

Action,  Not  Official 87 

Academy  of  Music,  Philadelphia,  Mass-meeting  Urging  Congressional 

Action  on  Southern  Suffrage  Conditions 93,  94 

Active  and  Persistent  Anti-Negro  Propaganda 215 

Acquiescence,  Confession,  Condonation  of  Discrimination 105 

Aeschylus 243 

Afro-American 22 

Council,  National  Convention  of 144 

Affray,  Brownsville 208 

Aftermath  of  Slavery,  Cited 48 

Age  Herald,  Birmingham 21 

New  York 9 

"  Agitate,  Agitate,  Agitate  " 64,  75, 144 

Agricultural  Conditions 24 

Alabama 20,  22,  24,  37-39,  41,  48,  50,  52,  56,  58,  71,  84,  102,  105, 

113,  115,  117,  118,  130,  131,  144,  182,  185,  190,  207,  227,  229, 
240,  241 

Conditions  in 130 

Constitution  of 145 

Contract  Law 265 

Disfranchisement  in 84-145 

Educational  Conditions  in 20 

Farm  Conditions  in 24 

Fourth  District 72 

A  Pretended  State  Election  in 117 

The  Representation  in  the  Black  Belt  Counties 130 

Vagrancy  Law 265 

"Alabama,  The" 259-263 

Alcibiades 243 

Aldrich,  William  F 72 

Alexander's  Magazine 157, 158 


292  INDEX 


Alliances  of  the  Oligarchy  and  Plutocracy 54 

"All's  Well  in  the  South" 24 

Amendment  Fourteenth 9,15 

Fifteenth 9, 15 

America  for  Americans 8 

American,  Baltimore 287 

Leader 56 

Magazine 150, 151 

People 14, 52 

War 134 

Anaxagoras 243 

Anderson,  James  L.,  Speech 11 

Anderson,  Indiana 169 

Anglo-Saxon 129 

Protest  against  Discrimination 129 

Anti-Negro  Magazine,  A  New 215 

Anti-Slavery  Cause  of  To-day 15 

Apathetic  Attitude  of  the  National  Government 129 

Apathy  of  the  Country  in  Respect  to  the  Negro 119 

Appropriations  for  the  South 207 

Appropriations  on  Claims 199 

Appomattox 47 

Apportionment 232,  241,  242 

Brief 233 

Archbishop  Ireland 53 

Arguments  in  Support  of  the  Republican  Suffrage  Plank  of  1904 ....       98 

Argyll  County,  Scotland 134 

Arkansas 33,  48,  50,  51,  101,  207,  224,  225,  226,  229,  241 

Aristocracy  in  a  Republic  a  Paradox 116 

Aristocracy  in  the  South 128 

Aristocratic  versus  Democratic  Idea 123 

Aristophanes 243 

"Armed  Rebellions"  Following  the  Cessation  of  Hostilities 174 

Army  of  Northern  Virginia 198 

Athens 243 

Athenian  Citizens 243 

Atlanta  Constitution 12,  13,  153,  190 

News 213 

Riots 90 

University 27 


INDEX  293 


Atlantic  and  Gulf  States 62,  81 

Attorney  General  252 

B 

Baldwin  County  265 

Baker,  Ray  Stannard 150 

Barry,  Richard 28 

Ballot,  The,  a  Defensive  Weapon 127-147 

Baltimore  American 287 

Barbarities  of  the  Confederacy 192 

Behring  Sea 259 

Belgium 41, 42 

And  Alabama  Black  Counties,  Farming  Contrasted  between.  . .       41 

Farming 41 

Belief  ontaine 253 

Bennet,  Representative  William  S 92,  93,  209,  229,  241 

And  Keifer  Reduction  of  Representation  Bills 93 

Berry  County 27 

Bethel  A.  M.  E.  Church,  New  York  City 158 

Better  Element  of  the  Southern  People 63 

Bibb  County 27 

Bingham,  Representative  247 

Birthdays  of  Lincoln  and  Lee  on  a  National  Parity 189 

Birmingham  Age  Herald 21 

Black  Belt 24,  131 

Black  Belt  Counties 117,  118,  130 

Black  Codes 46,  165,  182,  183 

"Black  Codes,"  Conditions  under  the 182 

Nullifying  Emancipation 46 

Reference  to 46 

Black  Counties 44 

Black  Counties  in  Alabama 41 

Blaine,  Mr 141 

On  the  War  Amendment 141 

"Bloody  Shirt" 102 

Blount  County 130,  131,  265 

Blyth,  James 212 

Board  of  Inspectors  of  Convicts,  President  of 38 

Bogy 42 


294  INDEX 


Bogy  Race 14,  163 

Bonaparte,  Attorney  General 28 

Bonaparte,  Attorney  General,  Describes  Peonage 28 

Border  States 49 

Bossism 130 

Boston,  The  Guardian,  Quotations  from 74,  75 

Bourbon  Democracy 131 

Leaders 131 

Oligarchy 131 

Bourbonism,  The  Spirit  of 22 

Boutwell,  Representative 247 

Bowen,  George  E 172 

"  Bowman  Act" 269 

Bradford,  Florida 33 

Bribery 54 

And  Corruption  under  Oligarchy  Rule 54-78 

Brief  before  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress,  Reduction  Bill 93 

British  Ambassador 16 

British  House  of  Commons 135 

Broad-minded  Southern  Statesmen  and  their  Dilemma 106 

"Brown,  John,  Osawatomie  Brown" 122,  123 

Brown,  Gantz 259 

Browne,  Junius  Henri 198 

Brownsville 159,  208,  210 

Affray 208 

Brownsville  Affray,  Cooper  Union  Mass-meeting 209 

Brookhaven,  Miss 161 

Buchanan,  President 79, 131 

Burns,  Cited 199 

Butler  County 265 

Butler,  General 204 

B.  F 273-278 

Byrd,  Col 29,  36,  37 

Byrom,  John « 12 

C 

Caithness  County,  Scotland 134 

Calhoun  County 265 

And  the  Nullifiers. .  146 


INDEX  295 


Calhoun 142,    143 

Calhoun's  Propaganda 142 

California 105,  227,  240 

Call  of  Temporary  Chairman  of  Democratic  Convention  to  Repeal 

Fifteenth  Amendment 100 

Campaign  Issues  in  Recent  Georgia  Gubernatorial  Election 65 

Campaigning  by  Epithet 129 

Canada 192 

Cannon,  Speaker 106 

Captured  and  Abandoned  Property  Act 267 

Carnegie  Institute 82 

Carpet  Bag  Government '. 132 

Cases  Cited 238,  267 

Caste  Rule 215,  217 

Casus  Belli 168 

Caucasian 20 

Caucuses  of  One  Party  only 107 

Cecil  Rhodes  Scholarships  and  the  Negro 16 

Census,  Twelfth 4 

Century  Dictionary  106 

Chadwick,  R.  E.,  Cited 172 

Chancellorsville 194 

Chance,  A,  for  the  "Silent  South"  to  be  Heard 118 

Charleston  News  and  Courier 144,  198 

Chattahoochee  Brick  Co.,  The 37 

Chautauqua  Assemblies 158,  253 

Chentung,  Liang-Cheng,  Sir 20 

Cherokee  County 265 

Chicago  Chronicle 149,  169 

China,  Schools  in 20 

And  the  South 20 

Christian  Endeavor  Patriots'  League 84,  85 

Church,  S.  H 82 

Cicero 172,  173 

Cimon 244 

Citizens'  Bank  of  Louisiana 203,»273 

Citizenship  in  a  Republic — What  it  Means 121 

Civil  Rights 263 

Civil  War 21,  105,  169,  170,  187,  188 

Civility 216 


296  INDEX 


Claims  for  Horses  and  Equipments 204 

Claims  of  the  Revolutionary  States  Perished  on  the  Field  of  Battle.  .      170 

"Clansman,  The" 43 

Clark,  Congressman 28,  95 

And  Peonage 28 

Class  and  Caste 3 

In  a  Republic  out  of  Place 116 

Clay,  Clement  C 192 

Cleary,  William  C 192 

Cleveland  Administration 164 

Cleveland,  Ex-president 19 

Coast  States 50,  53 

Columbia,  S.  C 268 

Codes,  Black 46,  165,  182,  183 

Colbert  County 265 

Collector  of  Customs  at  Savannah 13 

Color,  the  Line  of  Demarcation 11 

Columbia  University  Commencement,  1905 173 

Columbia  University  Commencement 259,  260 

Colorado 47,  227 

Colored  Man,  Is  the,  Literate? 132 

Colored  People  in  Majority  only  in  Mississippi  and  South  Carolina.  .       56 

Colored  Vote  Uplifting 46 

"  Combinations  " 53 

Comparisons,  Historical 243 

Congress,  Judiciary 234,  239,  240 

Conclusions  of  the  Great  Conflict  Minimized  and  Misrepresented.  . .     171 
Conditions  in  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Texas  and  Other   States  Im- 
mediately After  the  War 175 

North  and  South 2 

Post-bellum 246 

Conecuh  County 265 

Confederacy 59,  131 

Its  Extollation 3 

Described 3-7 

Confederate  Acts  of  Congress 5 

Assets 270,  271,  272,  273 

Cause 254,  255 

Congress 267,  270 

Cotton..  268 


INDEX  297 

PAQB 

Confederate  Finances 270-273 

Funds 204,  273-278 

Horses 273-282 

States  of  America 4,  6,  67,  187 

States 154 

Confessions  and  Threats  not  Arguments 103 

Conflict  of  Civilizations  in  the  Civil  War 168 

Congress 29,  49,  51,  113,  119,  120,  255 

Should  Settle  the  Question  of  Enforcement  or  Suppression  of 

Fifteenth  Amendment 118 

Congressman 113-120 

Congressional  Action  on  Suffrage  Questions  in  Fifty-eighth  Congress .       87 

Congressional  District 51 

Effect  of  Presidential  Attitude  on  the  Race  Question 77 

Favor 204-207 

Congressional  Record  Cited 28,  29,  42,  43,  57,  63,  140,  202-207,  289 

Connecticut 47,  50,  102,  112 

Court  of  Claims 200 

Constitution 29,  118,  263,  289 

Of  the  United  States 38,  89,  99,  105,  123,  139 

Constitutional  Amendments 131,  141,  154 

Convention 117 

Contrasts  of  Conditions  1871-1877  and  To-day 182 

Contract  Law 185 

And  Vagrancy  Law  in  Alabama  To-day 185 

Convention,  St.  Louis  Democratic 100,  105 

Convicts  Beaten  to  Death 36 

Convict  Camps 29 

Horrors  of 36 

Convict  Lease  Camps  in  Georgia 36 

Cooper  Union  Mass  Meeting  on  Brownsville  Affray 209 

Coosa  County 265 

Cotton  Claims 201,  269 

Cotton  States 41 

States  and  Belgium  Farming  Contrasts 42 

Corrupt  Practices  Prevention  Act  and  Corrupt  Practices  Act  in  Eng- 
land       135 

Cosmopolitan  Magazine 28,  29 

Counterpart  of  Black  Codes  To-day 183 

County  Convict  System 38 


298  INDEX 


Court  of  Claims 269 

Covington  County 265 

Crates 243 

Cratinus 243 

Crawford,  George 47 

Creation  of  Public  Sentiment 144 

Crumpacker,  Hon.  E.  D 45,  51 

Speech  in  Support  of  the  Republican  Plank 93 

Representative 87,   93 

Curtis,  George  W 1 

Cullman 131,  265 

Current  Funds 273-276 

Custom  Houses 60 

"Cut-the-Heart,"  etc 213 

County  Convict  System,  its  Horrors  and  Iniquities 38 


D 

Discreditable  Discrimination  in  Louisiana 186 

Discriminations 105-120,  235,  236,  237 

The  Most  Flagrant 120 

Disfranchisement  288 

Of  the  Main  Body  of  the  Negro  Race  in  the  Southern  States, 

a  Measure  of  High  Necessity 64 

By  Trivial  Technicalities 122 

Of  Negro  on  Account  of  his  Republicanism 148 

Why,  is  Bad 127 

Dispassionate  Consideration  Urged 219 

Disregard  of  Law  and  its  Effect 67 

Distortion  of  Historic  Fact 173 

District  of  Columbia 152 

District  Conventions 130 

District,  Ninth,  Ga 110 

Doherty,  Private  Michael 194 

Douglas,  Frederick 115 

Drown,  Captain 193,  194 

DuBois,  W.  E.,  Sociology  and  Industry  in  Southern  Education 28 

Duke  of  Richmond  in  1780 135 

Durham  Coal  and  Coke  Company 37 


INDEX  299 


Duty  of  Congress  Plainly  Stated 165 

Dwight,  Theodore  W 259,  264 

Dallas  County 118 

Danger  of  the  Mis-reading  of  the  Lessons  of  the  War 218 

Davey,  Mr 114 

Davis,  Jefferson 11,  158,  161,  188,  190,  192 

Debasing  the  Dominated  Electorate 108 

DeKalb  County 265 

De  Lavelaye  on  the  Thrift  of  Belgium  Farmers 41 

Delaware 4,  7,  8,  51,  94,  227 

Democracy 5,  51,  55,  70,  71,  106,  107,  155 

Of  the  North 48 

Spurious 4 

Democratic 51,  52,  107,  129 

Convention  in  1867.     Appeal  to  the  Colored  People  in  South 

Carolina 147 

Cooks  56 

Party 54,  106-120 

Democrats 48,  49 

Depew,  Senator 209 

Deportation 19 

Deprecation  of  Agitation  on  Fundamental  Principles  in  1860 69 

De  Tocqueville  on  Democracy  and  Aristocracy 149 

Dickinson,  Dr.  J.  M 173,  259 

Dingley  Tariff  Measures  and  the  Negro  Vote 48 


E 

Edinburgh,  Scotland 134 

Editorial  by  Thomas  E.  Watson 56 

Educational  and  Property  Qualification 147 

Edward,  H 162 

Edwards,  Charles  G 13 

Eighth  District,  Ga 114 

Electoral  College 49,  50,  88,  89,  101,  105,  109,  111,  113,  120,  255 

Electoral  Inequalities  Call  for  Drastic  Treatment 115 

Eleventh  District,  Ga 114 

Eleventh  District,  Ohio 51 

Eliot,  Ex-President 19 


300  INDEX 


Emancipation,  Proclamation  of 209 

Empire  State 110 

Episode 251 

"Equal  Opportunities  for  All" 70 

Equality  "  Votes" 113 

Equality  in  the  Sight  of  God  and  of  Man  Contrasted 166 

Errors,  Distortions 259 

Escambia  Co 265 

Estes,  Mr 13 

Etowah  Co 265 

Euripides 243 

Evidence 210 

Evening  Post,  New  York 18,  222 

Executives,  The,  Attitude  on  Southern  Suffrage  Conditions 86 

Extolling  the  Confederate  Conductors  of  the  Rebellion 188 

Extollation  of  Leaders  of  the  Confederacy 132 


F 


Falsifications  of  Ante-bellum  Historic  Conditions 172 

Falsifications  of  Fiction  Writers  and  Pretentious  Historians 46 

Faneuil  Hall,  Boston 131, 132 

Farce  of  the  Southern  Primaries 107 

Farnsworth 247 

Farragut 189 

"Fast  Mail"  Service 53 

Fayette  Co 265 

Federal  Constitution 42,  145 

Federal  State  Constitution 154 

Federalist,  The 86 

Felony  for  Colored   Person  to  Marry  a  White  in  the  District  of 

Columbia,  Bill  to  Make  it 152 

Fifteenth  Amendment 9,  11,  12,  13,  43,  73,  88,  104,  106,  118,  119,  123, 

132,  141,  142,  145,  146,  150,  159,  160,  162,  164,  165,  173,  236, 
241,  246,  249,  253,  257 

Nullifying 12 

Not  Observed  in  Practice 104 

Repealing 12,  104 


INDEX  301 


Fifth  District,  Ga 1 14 

Fifth  Louisiana  District 113 

Fifty-eighth  Congress 48,  51,  52,  54,  80,  87,  92,  93,  111,  114,  199 

Fifty-ninth  Congress 48,  49,  77,  80,  92,  93,  97,  165,  199 

Final  Treaty  Between  the  North  and  South 148 

Fines  of  Convict  Laborers 34 

First  District,  Ga 114 

First  District,  La 113 

First  New  York  Cavalry 194 

F.  D.  H 220,  244 

Flag 219 

Fleming,  W.  H 17 

Fleming,  ex-Congressman 13 

Hon.  Joseph  B.,  of  Augusta,  Ga 43 

On  the  Author  of  "The  Clansman" 43 

Florida 28,  33,  34,  47,  48,  50,  51,  69,  109,  142,  182,  183,  195,  229,  241 

Legislature 141,  142,  207 

Legislature,  Debate  in  Regarding  the  Amendment 142 

White  Slave  Girls  in 33 

Flower  Brothers  Lumber  Co 37 

Foraker,  J.  B 253 

Speech  of 184 

"Force  Bill" 129 

Fourteenth  Amendment 9,  43,  63,  73,  87,  88,  106,  118,  123,  125,  139, 

140,  141,  142,  146,  150,  161,  164,  165,  173,  235,  237,  241,  255,  257, 
284,  288 

Fourth  District,  Alabama 72 

Fourth  District,  Georgia 114 

Fox,  Mr 134 

Franklin  Co 265 

Free  Ballot  Does  not  Signify  Unlimited  Corruption 133 

Funds,  Confederate 204 

Fugitive  Slave  Law 122 

Of  1850 69,  122 


G 

Garfield,  Genera 47 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd  Centenary 15 


302  INDEX 


Gatton  134 

George,  Henry,  on  Human  Progress 137 

Georgia 21,  29,  35,  37,  48,  50,  51,  54,  58,  63,  80,  94,  95,  101,  105,  110, 

111,  114,  153,  154,  207,  224,  225,  226,  229,  241,  254 

Convention 13 

Convict  Lease  Camps  in 36 

Democratic  State  Convention 11,  12 

Equal  Rights  Association 22 

Governor  of 153 

Schools  in 21 

Secession  Convention 66,  68 

Secession  Convention,  Speech  Before 66 

Senate's  Drastic  Negro  Disfranchisement  Bill 155 

State  Election  (1906) 65 

State  Legislature 110 

Prison  Commission  (1905-6)  Report,  Cited 35 

Gibbon  8 

Gladden,  Dr.  Washington 151 

Glasgow,  Scotland 134 

Glorying  in  Rebel  Kinship 190 

Glossing  Over  Disfranchisement 148 

God's  Justice  Eternal 215 

Golden  Age 243 

Gorky 121 

Grant,  General 47,  188,  189 

Grant,  President 249 

His  Special  Message  to  Congress  on  Affairs  in  the  State  of  Lou- 
isiana    178 

Grant's  Tomb,  Memorial  Day  (1907)  Speech 13 

Grandfather  Clause 245 

Great  Britain 136 

Controlling  the  Railroads 136 

Landed  Class  in 136 

Greater  New  York 158 

Greece 245 

Greeley,  Horace 83, 259 

Greenwood,  Wm 240 

Greene  County 27 

Grimke,  Mr.  A.  H 115, 127 

On  Wrongs  of  the  Colored  People  Electorally  in  the  South 115 


INDEX  303 


Grosvenor,  General 51 

Guardian,  The  Boston,  Quotations  from 74-75 


H 


Hale  County 27 

Hamby  and  Toomer 37 

Hampton,  Governor 175 

"Hands  Off  1 "  Cry  of 13,  67 

Harbold,  Robert  Pattison 212 

Hardwick,  Congressman 13 

Harlan,  Mr.  Justice,  on  Slaughter  House  Cases 139 

Harmonizing  Changed  Conditions — A  Stupendous  Task  Admirably 

Accomplished 174 

Harrison,  Gen.  Benjamin 47 

Harrison,  President 70, 85 

Message 137 

Quoted 137 

Hawes,  Jas.  W 240 

Hayes,  Mr 47, 175 

Henderson  Representation 248 

Herald,  New  York,  on  Senator  Tillman 9,  75 

Herodotus  243 

Heintzelman,  Major-General 193,  194 

Hellenic  League 243 

High-minded  Citizen 188 

Helotry,  Political 222 

Hippocrates 243 

Holmes,  Justice 239 

Hope,  John,  on  Southern  Conditions 44 

Horses,  Claims  for 273,  282 

Confederate 273,  282 

House  of  Commons 134,  135,  136 

House  of  Representatives 17,  28,  48,  49,  50,  52,  94,  105,  106,  108,  109, 

110,  111,  160 

Houston,  Texas 31 

Howe,  Frederic  C 57 

Howell,  Clark 12,  95 


304  INDEX 


Hughes,  Charles  E 79,  80 

On  the  Scientific  Method  in  Politics 79 

Governor,  Speech  of  at  Troy,  Quoted 80 


I 

Idaho 50 

Ignoring  the  Lessons  of  the  Great  War 169 

Illinois 47,  105,  112 

State  Bar  Association 170 

Illiteracy 240, 242 

Inaugural  of  Governor  Smith  of  Georgia 155 

Independent,  The  N.  Y.,  Editorial 12 

Political  Party 5 

Indiana 34,  47,  94 

Tenth  District 51 

Individual  Political  Independence  and  an  Opposition  Party,  How 

and  When  Possible 5 

Industrial  Slavery  Practically  Re-established 46 

Inequalities  of  Representation 101 

Inferior  Races,  Inane  Philosophy  Respecting 63 

Inflammatory  "Race"  Talk  Dangerous  and  Unfair 43 

Influence  of  Executive  on  the  Shelving  of  Southern  Suffrage  Ques- 
tions    86 

Inviting  Revolution  at  Home 84 

Ireland,  Archbishop 53 

On  Everyday  Patriotism 53 

Is  the  Colored  Man  Literate?? 132 

Isocrates 243 

Italian . .  24 


J 

Jackson,  Andrew 61 

Jackson  County 265 

Jackson,  Stonewall 189 

Jackson,  President,  Proclamation 145,  146 

President,  on  the  Nullifiers 146 


INDEX  305 


Jamestown 17,  82 

Exposition  (1907) 151 

Exposition,  Discrimination  at  the 150 

Jefferson  County 265 

Jefferson,  Thomas 288 

Jim  Crow 22 

"Jim  Crowism" 43 

John  Brown,  Osawatomie  Brown 122 

Johnson,  Andrew 131,  254,  256,  258 

Johnson,  Andrew,  President 192 

Johnston,  Albert  Sidney 191 

Jubilee  of  the  Republican  Party 90 

Judiciary  Congress 234,  239,  240 

Judicial  Power 238,  239 

Justice,  The  End  of  Government 86 

The  End  of  Civil  Society 86 


K 

Kansas 105,  113,  114 

Keifer,  J.  Warren,  Representative 92,  93 

His  speech  on  Reduction  Bill 92 

Kelley,  Representative 247 

King  Richard  II.  Act  III.,  Sc.  3,  Cited 98 

Knox 63 

Knox's  Poem,  "Oh,  Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal  be  Proud". .       63 

Knoxville,  Term 33 

Kolb,  Captain 70,  71 

Ku  Klux  Klan 180,  259,  261, 285 


L 

Labor,  Convict 29 

Question  in  the  South 23 

Laissez-faire ,  -. 7, 10 

Policy  Defended  by  New  York  Tribune 83 

Lauterbach,  Edward 240 

Lawrence,  Bishop 19 


306  INDEX 


Lawrence  County 265 

"  Leave  us  Alone  " 104 

Lee  County 265 

Lee,  General 188 

Lee,  Robert  E 189 

Liang  Cheng,  Sir  Chentung 20 

Liberty  or  Death 144 

Lily-Whiteism 43 

Lincoln,  Abraham 1,  68,  153,  188,  189,  190,  192,  213 

Emancipation  Proclamation 139 

Lincoln  Day  Speech 76 

Lincoln's  Letter  to  A.  H.  Stephens  in  1860 68 

Lincoln  on  an  Overseemingly  Ambitious  President 153 

And  the  Real  Demand  of  the  South 213 

Lincoln's  Question  1 

Literacy  among  the  Colored  People 132 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  Cited 164 

Loitering  Statutes 183 

London 63 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  Cited 208 

Lookout  Mountain,  The,  Coal  and  Coke  Co 37 

Loomis,  Col.  J.  S.,  Treasury  Agent 200 

Lord  Rockingham 134 

"Lost  Cause" 6,  171 

A  Perennial  Cry 171 

Louisiana 18,  47,  48,  50,  51,  56,  69,  105,  108,  113,  114,  115,  176,  182, 

207,  224,  225,  226,  229,  240,  273,  278 

History  of 175 

Lovell,  General 268 

Lowndes  County 130 

Lynching 251 

M 

Macaulay's  New  Zealander  on  the  Ruins  of  London 63 

Macaulay  Cited 128 

Macon  County,  Ala 41 

Madison,  James,  Cited 86 

Manning,  J.  C 5,  22,  70,  81,  152,  183 

On  Actual  Conditions  in  the  South.  .  70 


INDEX  307 


Marengo  County 27 

Marshall  County 265 

Marshals,  Federal 259 

Maryland 105,  227,  228,  287 

Massachusetts 47,  50,  113,  115,  224-226,  228,  240 

Eleventh 194 

Mason 11 

Mason  and  Dixon's 183 

Matthews,  Justice 238 

May,  Sir  Thomas  Erskine,  on  English  Political  Purification 133 

McClellan 189 

McClure's,  March,  1907 14 

McClure's  Magazine 79 

McElroy 195,  196,  197 

McKinley 47 

Tariff  Measures 48 

McRee,  E.  J 37 

Mechnikow 121 

Meeting,  Cooper  Union 209 

Memorial  to  Senate  and  Congress  on  Brownsville  Affray 209 

Mendeleeff 121 

Merchant  of  Venice  Cited 160 

Message 210, 249 

Meton 243 

Meyer,  Mr 113 

Michigan 102 

Milholland,  JohnE 22,131 

On  the  Administration's  Strengthening  of  the  Bourbon  Democ- 
racy       131 

On  an  Uplifting  Race 130 

"Milky  Way" 243 

Miller,  A.  G 209 

Miller,  Judge  A.  L 13 

Minnesota 102,  105,  113 

Mischievous  Misrepresentations  of  the  Lessons  and  Results  of  the 

War 170 

Mississippi 34,  38,  48,  50,  51,  52,  56,  71,  72,  80,  101,  105,  107,  109, 

114,  115,  152,  160,  162,  176,  207,  224,  225,  226,  229,  240,  241,  268 

Governor  of 161 

Missouri  ...  33 


308  INDEX 


Mitchell,  Arthur  W.,  Letter  of 27 

Mobile  County 265 

Montgomery  Advertiser 102 

Moon,  Representative 57 

Morgan  County 265 

Morris,  Charles  S 209 

Mosby,  John  S 199,  200 

Claim 198 

Mound  Bayou,  Negro  Town  in  Mississippi,  Story  of  its  Growth  in 

Alexander's  Magazine  (Boston) 157 

Movement  to  Demand  United  Action  of  North  and  South  to  Repeal 

the  Fourteenth  Amendment 63 

Murderers 211 

Myron 243 


N 

Nashville  American 198 

Nation  with  Big  N 42 

Nation's  Responsibility  for  Violation  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment.  .      164 

National  Convention  of  the  Afro- American  Council,  1906 144 

House  of  Representatives 48,  50,  51 

League  of  the  Republican  Club 90 

Republican  Platform  of  1904 129 

And  Sectarian  Interests  in  Southern  Policies 162 

Nebraska 227 

Negro  Disfranchisement 12 

The,  and  the  Elective  Franchise 44 

Domination 6,  144 

"  Negro  Problem"  and  a  "  Square  Deal" 84 

Negro  Vote  Elected  Grant  in  1868 47 

Vote,  Influence  of,  in  the  Election  of  Hayes,  Garfield,  Harrison 

and  McKinley 47 

Voters  and  the  Balance  of  Power  in  Electoral  College 47 

Question 56,  101 

Negroes  Literate 12 

"Negroidism" 14 

New  Hampshire 227 

New  Jersey 47,  48,  50,  115,  227 

New  Orleans. ..16,  113,  114,  2.68 


INDEX  309 


New  Orleans  Democrat 103 

New  Orleans  Times-Democrat  on  the  Lincoln  Day  Speech  of  1905. .  77 

Negro  Problem 84 

New  South — Race  Prejudice 6 

New  Testament 166 

New  York.  .  .  .35,  47,  50,  94,  96,  101,  102,  105,  108,  109,  110,  112,  113, 

224,  225,  226 

New  York,  Greater 158 

State  Convention  at  Saratoga,  1906,  and  its  Resolution  on  Race 

Hatred 90 

State  Convention,  1906,  its  Platform 90 

"  Nigger" 56 

"Nigger  Plank"   129 

"Nigger  Problem" 129 

"Nineteenth,  The,  Century  and  After" 40 

Ninth  District,  Ga 110 

Ninth  District  of  Virginia 48 

Non-slave-holding  Whites 4 

North 43,  45,  49 

North  Carolina.  .  .17,  35,  48,  50,  51,  56,  58,  115,  148,  207,  240,  241,  284 

North  Carolinians 74 

North,  The,  particeps  criminis  with  the  South 45 

Northern  Democracy 106 

Northern,  Governor,  on  Races  and  their  Evolution 151 

Northern  Investigator 39 

"  Northern  Men  with  Southern  Principles  " 79 

Nullifiers,  The 146 


O 

Obsession  of  Southern  Thought  and  Expression 162 

Occasional  Papers 44 

Ohio 47,  50,  94,  101,  105,  110,  218,  225,  226 

Eleventh  District  51 

Oklahoma 224,  225,  226 

"Old  Civilization,"  The 168,  169,  260 

Extolled,  Magnified  and  Used  to  Suppress  Liberty  and  Political 

Manhood 167 

Old  Slave  Oligarchy  Duplicated  by  the  Bourbon  Oligarchy  of  To-day    216 


310  INDEX 


Oligarchy 5,  96,  106,  108,  109,  111,  214 

The,  how  it  Works  through  Congress 53 

Omnibus  Claims  Bill 200 

Ordinance  of  Secession 69 

Oregon 47,   50 

Organ,  Dr.  Margaret,  at  the  Prohibition  Party,  Mass 81 

Ostrander,  Luther  A.,  Cited 164 

Ould,  Mr.  Robert 196 

"Our  Doctrine"   142 

"Our  System" 142 

And  its  Exponents  Then  and  Now 216 


Page,  Thomas  Nelson 14, 103,  222 

Pamphlets  Regarding  Representation  Cited 98 

Panama 171 

"Parker's  Question  Answered " 106 

Parker,  A.  B 256 

Parker,  Theodore,  on  the  Decadence  of  Great  States 61 

Parliament 134 

Parliamentary  Record 135 

Partisanship,  Cupidity  of 103 

Party  Conventions  Urging  Action  on  Suffrage  Conditions  in  the 

South 86 

Pasteur 121 

Patriotism,   is  it  Encouraged  by  Extollation  of  the  Confederate 

Leaders 189 

Patterson,  Senator 141 

Remarks  of 283-289 

Peasantry,  A,  of  Disfranchised  Servitors 214 

Pennsylvania 47,  94,  96,  113 

Peonage 248,  285 

Description  of 28 

In  the  United  States 40 

Pericles 243 

Perry  County 265 

Persian  and  Greek  Civilizations 168 

Phidias 243 

Philadelphia 90 


INDEX  311 


Philadelphia  Meeting 115 

Phillips,  Wendell 23,  199 

Philippines,  Governor  of 191 

Pierpont  on  the  Ballot,  Cited 127 

Plain  of  Marathon 168 

Platforms,  State 223-228 

Plato 243 

Platt,  Senator 91 

Plea  of  "Local  Option " 104 

Pleasanton,  Brig.-Gen.  Alfred 194 

Plutocracy 54,  55,  96 

Poetry 219 

Poisonous  Propaganda  of  To-day 143 

Political  Conditions  in  the  South  To-day  Stated  and  Analyzed 51 

Manhood,  its  Cultivation  and  Discouragement 120 

Niagara 113 

Oligarchy 106,  108,  109,  111,  112 

Oligarchy  without  Conviction  or  Purpose  except  Power 112 

"  Political  Species" 79 

Political  Viand 56 

Polygnotus 243 

"Poor  Whites" 3 

Pope,  Alexander,  Cited 64,  196 

Populists 59, 110 

Popular  Government  in  the  South  Prostrated 81 

Population,  Slave  and  White,  1860 4 

Post,  Louis  F.,  Cited 128 

Potomac 50,  60,  94 

Practices  in  Convict  Camps 29,  30 

Preponderance  of  Democratic  Partisan  Representation  in  the  South     105 

President 109,  204,  252 

Buchanan 79 

Grant's  Special  Message  on  Louisiana  Affairs 178 

Harrison's  Message 137 

Harrison,  Cited 85,  137 

Harrison,  Quoted 70 

Jackson's  Proclamation 143,  146 

Jackson  on  the  Nullifiers 146 

And  Congress  Alike  Supine,  While  the  South  Violates  the  Con- 
stitution. . .  153 


312  INDEX 


President's  First  Message 88 

President,    the,    Suggestions    Made    to,    Regarding    Reduction    of 

Southern  Representation 83 

President's  Lincoln  Day  Speech  in  1905 76 

Presidential  Message  on  Brownsville  Analyzed 210 

President  of  the  United  States 6 

President  Roosevelt's  Speech  at  the  Dedication  of  the  McClellan 

Statue 189 

President  Roosevelt's  Speech  at  Jamestown 188 

Press  Criticisms  on  Governor  Hoke  Smith's  Views 156 

Press  Expressions  and  Opinions 221 

Press,  The,  on  the  Republican  Party's  Duty  Regarding  the  Suffrage 

Questions 88 

Primaries 236 

Prison  Commission  Report 37 

Pritchard,  Senator 42, 43 

Prize  of  War 268 

Problems  217 

Produce  Certificate 271 

Propaganda 215 

Proposition  in  Congress  to  Repeal  Fifteenth  Amendment 100 

Protagoras 243 

"Protection  of  Americans  in  America"  a  Seeming  Paradox,  but  a 

Verity 83 

Providence 43 

"Public",  The 81 

Punishment 211 

Purchasing  Political  Power 112 

Purification  of  Politics  in  England 133 


Q 
Question,  a  National  One 2 


R 

"Race"  Issue 57, 97 

Race  Prejudices 6 


INDEX  313 


Race  Problem 258,   289 

Question 23,  57,  97,  110 

Ransdell,  Mr 113 

Ransom,  Rev.  Beverdy  C 158 

"Rebels" 187 

Re-casting  the  Lines  of  Representation  on  Fair  and  Honest  Basis.  .      118 

Reconstruction 253,  256,  257,  259,  260 

History 174 

Measures 126 

Period 46,  111 

Period,  Beneficent  Action  of  U.  S.  Government 173 

Period,  Reference  to  Unfortunate 46 

Reduce  the  Representation,  the  Conceder,  the  Issue 106 

Reduction 229, 242 

Bill 45,  92,  229 

Basis  and  Table 229 

Brief 229 

Of  Representation 85 

Of  Representation,  Bill  of  1904 91 

Of  Representation,  Bill  of  1905 92 

Of  Southern  Representation  Beneficial 119 

Reeder,  Mr 114 

Reform  Bill  (1832) 135 

Registrars  and  their  Discriminations  and  Power 145 

Report  of  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Inspectors  of  Convicts  to 

the  Governor  of  Alabama 38 

Representative 29 

In  Congress 51 

Representatives,  House  of 50 

Representative  Moon  of  Tennessee,  his  Warning  to  Congress 57 

Representation,  the  Plank  in  the  National  Platform 98 

Republic 7,  46,  53,  108,  115,  116,  125-128 

Of  Colombia 171 

Republican 48,  49,  54 

Club 76,  86,  229,  240 

Convention 106 

Party 43,  49,  52,  73 

Party,  Jubilee  of 90 

Party  and  Loyalty  to  Republican  Traditions  and  Principles  ...       89 
Platform  of  (1904)  National,  and  its  Suffrage  Plank 89 


314  INDEX 


Republican  President,  A,  Welcoming  Accused  Lynching  Participants 

to  Executive  Mansion 153 

Republicans,  Liberal 264 

New  York 263 

Resolution,  in  Congress,  to  Repeal  the  Fifteenth  Amendment 13 

Resolution  of  Philadelphia  Convention  of  the  National  League  of 

Republican  Clubs 90 

Result  of  Collisions  of  Great  Armies 123 

Retain"Our  Party"  in  Power  at  Home 112 

Retrospect  of  Forty  Years 215 

Reviewing 215 

Rhodes,  Cecil 16 

Scholarship 16, 17 

Rhode  Island 47,  48 

Richmond 17 

' '  Rings  " 57 

Rio  Grande 50,  60,  94 

Rise,  The,  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power 181 

Rival  Candidates  in  the  Georgia  Gubernatorial  Contest 153 

Rome 245 

Roosevelt,  Mr 86 

Roosevelt,  President,  on  Character 82 

On  "Equal  Opportunities  for  All" 83 

Roosevelt  Glorying  in  Rebel  Kinship 191 

Roosevelt,  President 13 

On  General  Lee 188 

On  Good  Citizenship 85 

His  Lincoln  Day  Speech  in  1905 76 

At  Jamestown 188 

At  the  Unveiling  of  the  McClellan  Statue 189 

Places  Conscripts  of  the  Confederacy  on  a  Par  with  the  Union 

Army  Volunteers 189 

Theodore 44,  82,  161,  190,  191 

Theodore,  on  ' '  Wrongdoings" 44 

Roswell,  Ga 190 

"Rule  or  Ruin" 6 

Russia 121 

Intellectual  Giants 121 

Of  To-day,  Lessons  and  Warnings  from 121 

Russian  Peasant,  his  Future 121 


INDEX  315 

S 

PAGE 

Saunders,  Geo.  N 192 

Savannah  River 207 

Scandinavian 24 

Scarborough,  W.  & 45,  186 

Schools  in  the  South 17 

Schurz,  Carl 3,  15,  79 

Cited 187 

Scotland 134 

Secession 64, 69 

Secretary  of  War 63 

Sectional  Favoritism 204,  205 

Paramount  Problem 48 

Rampant,  Whatever  Viewpoint  is  Considered 218 

Segregation 19 

Semmes,  Admiral 191 

Senate  Document  155  Full  of  Race  Prejudice 213 

Senate  Enquiry  Respecting  Brownsville:  Remarkable  Evidence.  .  .  .     212 

Senatorial  Contest  in  Mississippi,  Anti-Negro  Sentiment  in 160 

Senatorial  and  Press  Opinions  on  the  War  Amendments 141 

Sentimental  Exhibitions  153 

Sequestration 19 

Servile,  A,  Population 15 

Seventh  District,  Ga 110,  114 

Seward,  Hon.  William  H.,  Secretary  of  State 192 

Seymour,  Mr 47 

Sheridan 189 

General,  and  his  Dispatches  from  New  Orleans  to  the  Secretary 

of  War  in  1875,  Showing  Actual  Conditions 176 

Sherman,  James  S 91 

Sherman,  General  William  T 188,  189,  199,  268 

On  the  Right  and  Wrong  Side  in  the  War 187 

On  Traitors  to  his  Country 192 

Sherman,  John,  on  the  Evils  of  Sectionalism  within  a  Nation 214 

Sherman,  Lt.-Governor,  at  Galesburg,  111 169 

Shipp,  Sheriff 251,  252 

Shreveport 17 

"Silent  South" 118 

Silence  about  Practical  Nullification 132 

Similar  Conditions  before  the  War  and  To-day 217 


316  INDEX 


Sinclair's  "  Aftermath  of  Slavery  " 48 

Sixth  District,  Ga 114 

Sixtieth  Congress 242 

Sladen,  Representative 283 

Slater  and  Peabody  Funds 22 

Slavery 248,  254 

Slave  Oligarchy 6 

Slave  States 126 

Slidell 11 

Smith,  Hoke 11,  12,  95 

Gov.  Hoke 153,  154,  160 

Gov.  Hoke,  and  his  Constitutional  Amendment  to  Disfranchise 
the  Colored  People  and  yet  Successfully  Evade  the  Inhibi- 
tion of  the  U.  S.  Constitution 154 

Smith,  Mr.  Wilford  H 145 

Snow  Hill 27 

Socialists 114 

Socrates 243 

Sophocles 243 

South 1,  2,  5,  13,  14,  15,  17,  20,  21,  22,  23,  24,  28,  29,  31-41,  43,  47,  48 

South  America 175 

South,  The,  Cannot  Ignore  the  Teachings  of  History 149 

And  the  Negro  Population,  the  Political  Problem 136 

Must  be  Made  to  Respect  and  Observe  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment   145 

And  the  Labor  Question 23 

And  its  "Home"  Problem 69 

South  Carolina 47,  48,  50,  51,  52,  56,  71,  94,  101,  105,  109,  113,  115, 

142,  158,  175,  207,  228,  229,  241,  284 

South,  Peonage  in  the 28 

Southern  Conditions 44 

In  1871 181 

In  1877 181 

Southern  Democratic  Editor  on  the  War  Amendments 148 

Expressions  Regarding  Reduction  of  Representation 103 

Leaders,  Better  Element  among 10 

Leaders  and  their  Policy 8 

Oligarchy  and  Combination  of  Capital 53 

Officials  Report  on  County  Convict  System 39 

Political  Conditions  a  Cancer  in  the  Body  Politic 48 


INDEX  317 


Southern  Railway 53 

Slogans 8 

States 40,  41,  285,  287 

States,  No  Real  Republican  Government  in  Many 84 

System 53 

Speech  and  Statistics  Regarding  Anomalies  in  Southern  Representa- 
tion   94 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  American  Easy-goingness  and  Habit  of  Acquies- 
cence    218 

Spenser,  Edmund,  Cited 208 

Spenser's  Faerie  Queene 208 

Spiritualist-Camp-Sunday- Afternoon 141 

Spirodonovitch,  Gregory 121 

Spooner,  Senator  John  M 138 

Speech  in  the  Senate,  Jan.  15,  1907 138 

Spooner's,  John  M.,  Valedictory  Speech 140 

Spirit,  The,  that  Would  Abolish  the  Bugaboo  of  Negro  Supremacy  . .  166 

Square  Deal 84 

St.  Louis  Democratic  Convention 100,  105 

Statistics  and  Facts  about  Southern  Representation 107 

Statistics  of  Political  Anomalies  in  the  South 48 

Of  the  Negro  Voters 47 

Of  White  and  Colored  Population 56 

"Standing  Indictment  against  the  Negro,  The" 158 

"Standing,  The,  Indictment  Against  the  Negro,"  a  Remarkable 

Sermon  by  Rev.  Beverdy  C.  Ransom 158 

"Stars  and  Bars" 6,  191 

Stars  and  Stripes 191 

Startling  Electoral  Statistics 105 

State  Constitution 117 

State  Convention  at  Saratoga 90 

State  Democratic  Convention 129 

State  and  Federal  Legislation 119 

State  Legislature 55 

Senatorships 118 

Rights 249 

Statute  of  Limitations 200 

Statutes  Cited 205 

Stephens,  Hon.  Alexander  H 66,  68,  69,  216,  254 

On  Ante-bellum  Conditions  in  the  South 65 


3i8  INDEX 


Stevens,  Thaddeus 259,  260,  262,  263 

Stewart,  Representative 248 

Storey,  Moorfield 15 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 34 

Stuart,  Jeb,  U.  S.  Marshal 191 

Suffrage  255 

And  the  Elevation  of  the  Colored  Race 80 

The,  a  Protection  of  Classes  and  of  Individuals 81 

Plank  of  1904,  Why  Ignored 87 

Summarizing  the  Views  and  Facts 218 

Sumner,  Senator 248,  249 

Sun,  New  York 156,  161 

Supervision,  Federal 259 

Supreme  Court,  U.  S 142,  238 

Surrender  Violations 205,  279-282 

Swanson,  Governor,  of  Va 171 

"System,  Our" 216 

"System,"  Southern 53 


T 


Tables 242 

Taft,  Mr 74 

Taft's  Characterization  of  the  Colored  People 148 

Taft  on  Disfranchisement 148 

Taft,  Secretary,  on  the  Economic  Independence  of  the  Colored  Race.  149 

Secretary,  at  Greensboro,  Speech  of 73 

Message  of  Acquiescence 75 

At  Tuskegee 149 

On  the  Three  War  Amendments 146 

Secretary,  on  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 73 

Tallapoosa  County,  Ala 130 

Taylor,  Mr.  H.  A 201 

Tenth  District,  Ga 114 

Tennessee 69,  101,  102,  224,  225,  226,  229,  240,  241 

Tennyson,  Alfred 133 

Ten  Commandments,  The,  and  the  Negro  Bogy 43 

Tennyson  and  Half  Truths 133 


INDEX  319 


Terrell,  Mary  Church 40 

Terrell,  Governor,  of  Ga 188 

On  Roosevelt's  Wrong  to  Memory  of  President  Davis 188 

Test  Case  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 144 

Texas 48,  50,  51,  175,  182,  207,  229,  236,  240,  241,  284 

Three,  The,  War  Amendments 146 

Three  War  Amendments  to  the  Constitution 152 

Third  District,  Ga 114 

Thirteenth  Amendment 28,  43,  46,  125,  141,  146,  164,  255 

"This  is  a  White  Man's  Country  and  White  Men  Must  Govern  it". .         8 

Thompson,  Jacob 192 

Thompson,  Lt.  Clifford 194 

Thompson,  Maurice 23 

'  'Thorough,"  Policy  of 259,  260,  262 

Thoughtful  Observer,  A,  on  Labor  Conditions  in  the  South 123 

Thucydides 243 

Tillman,  B.  R 51 

Senator 8,  10,  42,  43,  158,  254 

And  Pritchard  Colloquy  in  the  Senate  in  1900 42 

Times,  The  New  Orleans 77 

New  York 16,  121,  176 

Washington 273 

Tolstoi 121, 128 

On  the  United  States 128 

Toombs 11 

Treaty  of  Peace  between  North  and  South 148 

Tremain,  H.  E 76,  94,  98,  198,  210,  240 

On  Southern  Electoral  Inequalities  and  Anomalies 94 

Tribune,  N.  Y 20,  80,  83,  189,  273 

Tribute  to  Southern  Valor,  Prowess  and  Chivalry 198 

Tschaikowsky 121 

Tycker  Act 269 

Tucker,  Beverly 192 

Tuscaloosa  County 27 

Tweed 260 

"Tweedledee  and  Tweedledum  " 12 

Twelfth  Census 229,  240,  242 

Tables 242 

Bulletin 4 

Bulletin  No.  8..  157 


320  INDEX 


Twenty-fifth  Anniversary  of  Tuskegee 146 

Twenty-fifth  Infantry,  U.  S.  A 158 


U 

Ultimate  Court  of  Appeal 219 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 34 

Union 47,  182 

Union  Army 188 

Union  League  Club 86 

United  States 40 

United  States  Constitution 106,  116,  122,  142,  154 

Government 138 

Peonage  in 40 

Senate 49 

Statutes  at  Large 200 

Unspeakable  Horrors  of  War,  Owing  to  Ignoring  War's  Unwritten 

Law « 197 

Utopian  Dream 63 


V 

Vagrancy  Law 183 

Valedictory  Senate  Address 138 

Valedictory,  Senator's 283 

Value  of  Negro  Farm  Property 157 

Vardaman  on  the  Negro  Race  and  Confederacy 161 

Vardaman's  Intense  Antipathy  to  the  Colored  Race 161 

Vermont 224,  225,  226 

Vice-President 109 

Virginia 18,  48,  50,  51,  56,  58,  115,  224,  226,  229,  236,  240,  241 

Ninth  District  of . .  48 


W 

Wall  Street 54 

War  Amendments 67,  68.  85,  118,  123,  132,  141,  169 

War,  CivU , 21. 105 


INDEX  321 


War  of  the  Rebellion 3,  7,  40,  168,  194 

Philosophy  of 168 

War  for  the  Union 125 

War  of  the  United  States 154 

Washington,  Booker  T.,  Cited 161,  165 

Washington  County 265 

Washington,  Days  of 68 

Washington  Evening  Star  on  the  President 190 

Evening  Star 190,  222 

Post 189 

Watson,  Thomas  E.,  Editorials  by 56 

Watterson,  Henry,  Speech  at  Louisville 148 

West 49 

West  Virginia 47, 48 

White  Caps 285 

White  House 78,  79,  88 

Whites,  Illiterate 12 

White  Leagues 176,  180 

White  Man's  Question 101 

White  Slave  Girls  in  Florida , 34 

White  South 69 

White  Supremacy 11,  130 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  Centenary 15 

Williams,  John  Sharp 17,  162 

And  his  Blasphemous  Reference  to  the  Colored  Man's  Soul ....     162 

Willey,  Senator 249 

Williamsburg,  Battle  of 193 

Wilmer,  Bishop 177 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  Cited 98 

Wilson,  Henry 181 

Wilson,  Representative 247-250 

Winder,  John  H.,  Ga 195 

Winston 131,  265 

Wisconsin 105 

Wisdom  and  Sagacity  of  the  U.  S.  Government  after  the  War 174 

Woodford,  Stewart  L 8 

Woodruff,  Lewis  B 261 

World,  N.  Y 141,  252 

World  on  Florida  Legislature's  Disapproval  of  Amendments 142 

Wright,  Ex-Confederate  Luke. 191 


322  INDEX 

X 

PAOE 

Xenophon 243 


Yancey 11 

Yielding  to  Congressional  Claims  after  Forty  Years  from  the  War  .  .  199 

Young  Men's  Lyceum 153 

Yulee..  11 


Zeno 243 


DATE  DUE 


A     000528913     7 


